BRIGHTON
BELLE
What is it with me and football crowds?
The last thing you expect on a weekend
break to Brighton is to get mixed up with a
bunch of drunken football supporters – and
it had all started so well.
Our girl was acting in an amateur
production of The Winter’s Tale (W.
Shakespeare) and given that she had
travelled regularly from Cambridgeshire to
Haywards Heath for rehearsals and then
to Brighton for the performances, we felt
the least we could do was get down there
and support her. She joined us at our B&B
for the weekend and we walked her up to
the Nightingale Theatre each night.
Now I don’t know how well you know
Brighton, but the Nightingale is a tiny
theatre in the upstairs of a pub opposite
Brighton Station. Can you see where this
is leading? Our walk on Saturday evening,
around 6pm, took us past several pubs
overflowing with sports fans straight from
the game. Don’t ask me which teams they
supported – I assume one was Brighton
and Hove Albion, but I’m not up on those
stripey scarves, so I couldn’t tell you who
the other team were. Suffice to say that
they spilled onto the pavement and were
quite loud.
Rounding the corner at the top of the hill,
there were yellow jackets as far as the eye
could see – the police were out in force.
We pushed through a group of three or
four to get in the pub door. The staff told us
that the theatre door wouldn’t open until
7.15, so out we went again. (My Personal
Handyman didn’t want to drink in the bar
after his experience there the night before:
he had walked