Any idea when they allowed alcohol sales inside football stadiums?....I started going in the 1960's and I only remember soft drinks and tea/coffee/bovril being sold.
I also started going in the 1960's and alcohol was definitely sold underneath the stand. In fact, alcohol was sold in one section and all non alcoholic drinks/foodstuffs in the other.
You must only be 10 years old then pal, boxing events have been always been notorious for a scrap outside the ring
It was a pain in the arse yesterday. Me and my son seemed to be sat in the middle of a drinking contest. A few could barely stand up, constantly pushing past us, spilling beer everywhere. It does say in the T&Cs that people appearing intoxicated wouldn’t be served and would be asked to leave. If they’d chucked out anybody pissed near us we’d have had the block to ourselves. My mate said he saw people who were going to the boxing openly doing coke in the market kitchen in the afternoon, not even bothering to go to the toilets or try to hide it. That’s as big an issue as booze for violence at public events. It is quite pathetic when you see grown men picking fights with each other, because they can’t handle what they’ve drunk or snorted. I’ve got so I rarely go to away games any more, cos of the behaviour of some of our fans. If they were allowed to carry on boozing throughout the game I’d never go. My son hates it, probably because he’s seen the state his mum has got in so many times, and he knows the equation. Arsehole + booze/drugs = violent arsehole.
The fact you can’t drink in front of a football game is stupid. You can drink as much as you like before in the concourse before or at halftime or at a pub before but once you’re in front of football it becomes a problem? But at other sports it’s fine? It’s based on history and absolutely ridiculous
It’s bad enough at matches as it is, folk getting there five mins late, up again ten mins later for a pee, up again three mins later when they return, (maybe another piss break), then up at least five mins before half time so they can get more ale, then back up five mins after the second half’s kicked off, then at least one, probably two more piss breaks - and then leave early too. Same couple every week, same routine, in the bloody family stand and I’ve never once seen a kid with them. They can’t be in their seat for more than half the minutes of play every game. I mean each to their own but it’s grating when you’re up and down more than Jordan’s knickers and it’s not because the on field stuff is getting you out of your seat! Saturday there were a group of four women sat near us - must have spent a fortune on cans of Au as they were never without either a pink or blue drink all night. Never seemed to be watching a fight but I assumed they were waiting for the main event and only interested in it - by the time Simpson did his ring walk two of them appeared to have left (maybe they went somewhere else in the stand I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly paying that much attention), and the other two were sat in front of us with people stood up in front of them, looking at their phones drinking and not remotely interested in looking up or getting up to see. The tickets were I think £60 each where we were - not the dearest but by a long way but not the very cheapest either; bottom part of the east lower, gangway 7 where they started the ring walks - why on earth would you bother buying the tickets? Then there were the stupid little twa.ts behind us throwing beer and then shi.tting themselves when we all turned round and a fella near us called them out. It was £6.50 or £7 a pint for a start - but if it was free I’d still not want to chuck it rather than sup it myself. I didn’t think I was that old - I’m 42 - but the younger ones baffle me sometimes they really do. They all seem to have what I call ‘foreskin’ attitudes. Plenty of opinion - but disappear when it gets hard.