Drinking culture still plays a big part in game
Alcohol-fuelled sessions common with pros in the old days, but less now
Have you heard about the Parlour trick with 35 pints of lager and a double? Those who have heard the story will invariably recognise the entrenched drinking culture and loutish behaviour among British-influenced soccer communities, including Hong Kong.
Ray Parlour, the former Arsenal and England midfielder, revealed how he and his English teammates preferred to down pints after training sessions and matches, while their foreign teammates like Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Gilles Grimandi apparently went for coffee and smokes. Parlour claimed in their first preseason tour with Arsene Wenger in 1997 that Steve Bould, now Arsenal's assistant manager, ordered 35 pints for five Arsenal diehard drinkers.
That season Arsenal's heady mix of lager and tobacco addicts went on to win the English Premier League and FA Cup double. Such alcohol- and nicotine-fuelled title-winning exploits are improbable in this day and age.
Parlour's drunken exploits also landed him in trouble in Hong Kong. Arsenal's 1995 preseason tour saw Parlour arrested and fined after an altercation with a taxi driver in Wan Chai in the early hours of the morning. And who can forget England's pre-Euro 96 tour of Hong Kong where players like Paul Gascogine, Darren Anderton and Teddy Sheringham binged on alcohol sitting on the legendary "Dentist's Chair" and then trashed a Cathay Pacific plane on their way back to London.
There is an interesting common denominator between Gascoigne, David Batty, Keith Gillespie, Alan Shearer and Andy Carroll. They are players who notably immersed themselves in the Geordie working-class mindset of drinking, which appears to have become a national pastime in Britain. The only difference is that Carroll, 24, is a current generation of professional soccer player and needs to avoid the alcohol-fuelled pitfalls experienced by his Newcastle predecessors. Carroll has admitted to gaining a reputation for drinking and socialising during his time at Newcastle.
It is rare to see professional players drink in Hong Kong. In the amateur leagues it is also rare to see local players drink because it is not embedded in their culture
Although notorious tales of British alcoholic soccer players abound, in today's modern and hopefully enlightened times drinkers like Carroll are fast diminishing from the professional level. However, this drinking mindset still exists among a few professionals as well as the majority of amateur British players. Much of this mentality derives from British male-bonding methods such as those traditionally used in the armed forces, which spread out into the working classes.