Drayton Park Update: Part II

04 April 2011 11:00
The saga continues So I left you hanging on wondering who our mysterious overnight guest was. Let's go back a bit. Saturday night had been a great success with lots of dancing, singing and of course drinking. As a good host should, I was making sure everybody was having a good time and also making sure that those who appeared to have had too much of a good time were OK and would be able to get to wherever they were staying. Reassurances were given and backed-up by slightly less inebriated friends by all concerned apart from this one guy who was decidedly the worse for wear. At one point in the evening, I spotted him in the front bar hanging on for dear life in the classic 'if I move I will be sick' pose of both arms straight out, head between the arms and hands on brass rail round the bar. Not wanting him to be sick in the bar, I had a chat with him to see what the story was with the idea of encouraging him to head off for the night. In front of him were two glasses; one at least a straight triple and a beer I think. I was concentrating on him so the beer may have been a vodka. As I spoke to him, he snapped to consciousness and confirmed he was OK and downed the triple with alacrity. I was stone-cold sober and I couldn't have done that. I saw him 20 minutes later trying to get another drink but his sporran was bare. This was when he agreed to go home A half-hour later I was alerted by Mark, the owner, that he had found someone asleep on the pavement outside. Rather than let sleeping Scots lie, and perhaps attract attention by the local constabulary, we went out to rescue the poor lad and see if we could help him. It was my friend from earlier without a bean to his name. He had lost his Glengarrie and was bearly able to stand up hanging onto a lampost. Long, long, long and rambling story short we found out that he did not have a hotel booked; he was on his own; he thought he was in Aberdeen; he wanted to get a taxi home and did not care if it cost £400. Even if he did have some money, he was in no fit state to be a passenger if a taxi would have picked him up. He was convinced that he just needed to take the first right, third left and walk three hundred yards and he would be home. In between all this, he had told us that he did have a hotel booked (the name of which we managed to get out of him but they had never heard of him); we got his dad's phone number (but we never got a reply to the voice mail we left); he had fallen out with his friend and he know where the hotel was; and no he didn't want a drink of water. We finally managed to get him to come inside and have a sleep in an armchair in the kitchen. We thought if he had some sleep he may pull himself together a bit so we could get some sense out of him. The time was 9:30 pm.  Between then and the witching hour when the bar was closed, I dropped by from time to time to make sure he was still breathing. He snuggled himself under various jackets and sucked his thumb from time to time which to me was a good sign. Survival instinct had kicked in. Finally we had to wake him up to see if sense had returned. A wishful thought on Mark and my part. More lucid rambling but rambling none the less was our reward for patiently trying to get information out of him. He still thought he was in Aberdeen (the cricket club to be precise) and knew his way home from there. Nothing would convince him that he was in London. As he was not fit to be let out on his own; had no money for a taxi; and we needed to get to sleep ourselves; it was agreed that he could stay in the kitchen on the promise that he did not move till he was woken in the morning. I thought there was little danger of him being able to move but he gratefully accepted the offer of the armchair for the night. I should point out that at no time during this ever-lasting saga did he swear once or was anything other than grateful for the help being offered. The bar was due to reopen at 10:00 on the Sunday so I needed to get some sleep before the fun began in earnest. 600 ticket-holders for the pub were due to arrive and that was not counting the thousands who would be arriving to see a bar open just two minutes away from their end of the ground. What was I thinking of when I thought this was a good idea?

Source: FOOTYMAD