Clubbing - another "when I wor a lad" post

Some readers may know that I also inhabit a forum known in these parts as RLFans, a loose and numerous collection of rugby league supporters sharing opinions about The Great Game, and other things

In order to make visits to Headingley, and Leeds in general, more interesting to visiting supporters we prepared a "How to find us and then how to enjoy Leeds" thread and from that was spawned the "Leeds Night Life" article.

It opened my eyes I can tell you.

The contributors to that "Night Life" article speak of spending whole saturday nights in clubs that charge a fortune to get in but ply you with free drinks, glowsticks, face paint, interactive plasma tv screens, a bag of monkey nuts, a new suit, and a dolly bird to take home - ok ignore the bit from "monkey nuts" onwards., I made that up.

Well actually I didn't make it up, I snaffled it from the excellent "Capstick Comes Home".

Any road,

One thing that they don't seem to do now is insist on any sort of a dress code other than sometimes advising on a shirt and a pair of shoes, seems strange being naked from the waist down apart from a pair of shoes but if thats what floats your boat then so be it.

So here's where todays sermon really begins...

"It wasn't like that in my day..."

In the olden days we had nightclubs of course, in fact I think in this great city of ours we had at least three, the jewel in the crown of which was Cinderella/Rockerfella a dual nightclub where plebs like me could just about gain entry into the Cinderella door, the Rockerfella side being reserved for those of Rockerfella status and wallet, a place where rich and more elderly clientele took their dolly birds for a chicken-in-the-basket meal and a disco dance later while their wives stayed at home, knitting, thinking they were down the club playing cards and dominoes.

Nightclubs were for "birding", that strange ritual where groups of males congregate for the purpose of finding a girl who is willing to dance with them to the funky disco beat and then maybe have a shag later.

I say "dance" in the loosest possible sense of the word of course for we were nobody's John Travolta, or more fitting for the era of which I speak, Peter Gordeno.

You've never heard of Peter Gordeno ?

Of course you haven't, those of you too young to have grown up with Cilla Blacks Big Night Out on saturday night TV will not recall the lithe dancing greasy twat with his trendy bubble perm on his head and chest, and mouth full of shining teeth - you don't know how lucky you are to have missed Cilla Black's Big Night Out.

I digress,

Nightclubs were something you did after you had got yourself totally and utterly blathered in a pub or pubs of your choice for no male with any sort of pride would actually dance to the funky disco beat unless totally and utterly blathered - this will answer a lot of question to those younger readers for whom disco dancing to the funky beat is second nature and performed easily without the aid of alcohol - now you know why your fathers and uncles have to get totally and utterly blathered on beer before they will dance and subsequently make fools of themselves at weddings.

We'd all meet up in town early on a Saturday neet in order to give ourselves maximum exposure to beer and the first half hour would be spent laughing at each other dressed in our suits, shirts and ties, for no-one, I repeat no-one, would be allowed admission to a nightclub without suit, shirt and tie, it was the law.

At 10.30pm sharp last orders would be called and with a round of whisky chasers for good luck we'd make our way up through town to Cinderellas, for there was very little other choice but Cinderellas for our disco dancing fun. We'd join the queue outside and hope that we were smart enough and sober enough to get past the doorman and it would usually be sometime around now that someone in our all-male party would notice that most of the other males outside would all be stood with a bird of their choice on their arm, this news would be treated with despair as a nightclub full of couples is no use whatsoever for a gang of lads out birding.

Our last few pounds would be spent trying to raise enough money to get us all past the ticket office, inevitably one or more of us would be skint and much rummaging for coins of the realm, right down to the bottom of all of the pockets in our rarely worn suits, would ensue until finally, and with a huge heap of old coinage and trouser pocket fluff on the counter and a look of distain on the ticket office lady's face, we would be allowed entry by the bouncer on the door who would scrutinise each one of our faces for signs of blathered-ness or "you're the one I chucked out last week".

The night would be spent in a fruitless search for unattached females, a species which was rarer than hens teeth at Cinderellas for females are wiser than the male and simply did not pay to go in nightclubs preferring to attach themselves to a lad who looked like he had cash in the pub beforehand and get him to pay their entry in - of course this meant that the cheapskate female had some sort of obligation to stay with him for at least a few minutes after gaining entry, more if he bought her a drink, more still if he was willing to buy her drinks all night, and so us unattached lads stood by the dancefloor, blathered, concentrating on standing up straight without swaying, desperately trying to focus on the totty on the dancefloor in the full knowledge that we'd be leaving this establishment, once again, bird-less, skint, and with a long walk home for taxis were for those with birds, and money.

Thus was our nightclubbing experience, 'twas the same at each and every visit, I never scored in a nightclub, was thrown out of two, once for snogging some random slapper in a dark corner and once for a crime that I know nought of, sorry I was thrown out of three - I forgot the night that I was thrown out of The Cats Whiskers in Meanwood - a truly filthy and horrible dive - for being too drunk to stand...or speak, one again I don't know how I got home that night, only that I awoke at some unearthly hour in our back garden taking a leak in our mums herb garden having climbed out of my bedroom window to do so rather than walk the few steps down the hallway to the bathroom - how fortunate I was that we lived in a bungalow and how fortunate that I awoke whilst whizzing on the mint so that I could refuse it on my lamb the following lunchtime.

They dun't know they're born these days...