What It’s Like to Serve Drunk Sports Fans in a Members-Only Bar

Welcome back to Restaurant Confessionals, where we talk to the unheard voices of the restaurant industry from both the front- and back-of-house about what really goes on behind the scenes at your favourite establishments.

For this installment, we hear from a female bartender at a members-only bar in a London sports stadium.

This is how my summers during university went: I'd make the hour and a half journey across the city to spend morning, noon, and night in a sweaty bar, with posh drunken men on the other side, leering and demanding endless pints of ale.

I learned fast that to these people, I was invisible as a person. I was there solely to pour beer for their unquenchable thirst.

You'd think that working in a members-only bar in a large sports venue would be better than working in the stands. Wrong. That membership card only served to fuel egos and increase the sense of entitlement.

Sure, there were some sweet customers who would be the first in on match days and ask how you were, but once play started and the drinks were flowing, the rowdy customers would soon drown the nice guys out. If there were matches over several days, their hangovers would get steadily worse each morning. But then they'd just drink even more.

Everyone would always start the morning with lager shandies. Some guys would lean over the bar and shout at you, trying to convince you that you needed to put the beer in first (which would actually cause the drink to foam everywhere). One poor girl fell for their prank and ended up covered in beer-y lemonade. The whole bar jeered at her. Needless to say, I don't think she'll ever forget how to make a lager shandy.

Then the corks on Champagne bottles would start getting popped and while the tip jar remained resolutely empty, wads of cash would start being pulled from wallets. One of my fellow bartenders opened so many bottles of Champagne one shift that her hands started bleeding.

And after the rounds of dark bitters and IPAs were in, things started to get really bad.

The guys would stop watching what was happening on the pitch and slump against the bar, bragging about the millions their divorces cost them, or simply slagging off their exes. Two men once started an angry tirade about the fact that the club rules got changed a couple of years back, allowing women access into the bar.

My manager and I, both female, turned our backs to them and spat in the pints they'd just demanded from us. On their next round, we topped up their drinks with wastage beer from the taps. They were so drunk that they didn't even notice.

During the breaks of play, everyone would descend on the bar. They'd become a sea of faces, each one screaming that they were next to be served and throwing their money at you. After a mad 15 minutes when most people retreated to their seats, I'd be left drenched in sweat, ale, and sparkling wine. And feeling like shit.

After we chucked the last ones out at the end of the day, I'd make the long journey back home for four hours sleep before repeating the whole thing again.