Source: FOOTYMAD
Drayton Park Update: Part I
So much happened during the two days I had taken over the Drayton Park (AKA the Drayton Arms) that it is only now that I can find the time to write about them. Now that I am home from the Drayton Arms experience, flashes of events and the people I met and settling into my head. This is not due to over indulgence; it is just that things were just so full on for the two days we took over the pub. There was working with Kathryn Dunlop and Lynne Hughes from BurtGreener who were helping Irn-Bru get their promotional stuff in place (every level surface which could hold the base of a bottle was utilised), figuring out if their Bruzil banner would stay stuck to the wall with gaffa-tape; meeting the driver of the Irn-Bru ice-cream van, Bob Johnstone, whose van's bodywork was just clearing the tyres as the back was jam packed with several thousand bottles of the other national drink; walking towards the pub on the Saturday and seeing the Scottish Sun's double-decker bus next to the Arsenal sign made things real for me that it was not just a dream; Kirsty from the Sun being diplomatic to an irate resident who did not like the idea of the bus sitting outside his flat (he wanted to know who he could call in the council - we reminded him that as it was Saturday and most of them were on a March anyway, he may not get much satisfaction till Monday); meeting the doormen hired for the weekend (I always wondered what happened to the Albanian equivalent of the SAS. They scared me and I was on their side!) and all this before the pub opened at 12 o'clock on Saturday. I did not expect much activity on the Saturday to be honest as the days of he Wembley week, which turned into the Wembley weekend are long gone. However, from 12:30 onwards there was a steady ringing of tills behind the bar which must have been music to the ears of Mark Kitson, the landlord. By Sunday evening you would not have been able to wrench the grin off his face with crow-bar. The place really came alive as I headed to watch the Brazilians train at the Emirates (I like to think it was a co-incidence) when Ted Christopher set up his gear and sang his heart out for two and a half hours. He had them in the palm of his hand by the time I came back. Several groups in the bar are regular followers of Scotland and had seen Ted before and he was cheered to the echo whenever he looked as if he was calling it quits. Around 8pm as Ted was being rubbed down with a damp cloth, DJBlues (AKA Ryan Milo) took over the entertainment and he rose to the challenge to 'follow that!' like a good-un. I had spoken to Ryan and offered what advice I could about what to play to keep people happy. He worked the room very well, willing to offer the mike to people with a song in the heart that they felt had to be released. Tracks from Madness, Proclaimers and Mumford and Sons went down particularly well as did anything by Status Quo. Anything that allowed some crazy male bonding dancing to occur including 'Oops upside your head' got the floor mobbed by those with excess energy fuelled by the excellent bar staff. Basically around 150 folk kept the bar staff running around mental all night ahead of the planned 12:00 close down for the pub. That does not mean that the bar was empty by midnight. We had advised Ryan to keep Flower of Scotland back to play as the last song. Just as we had encouraged the professional drinkers to move on, Ryan sticks the Corries on and back they all came for an interesting rendition of the song. How come nobody can get the timing right on the song? Everybody appears to be keen to get it sung and by with as quickly as possible. We finally cleared the bar and Mark and I looked at each other and wondered what we had done by allowing 600 tickets to be sold for the Sunday. More of that later and of the mystery of the all-night guest.
