The inspiration for a Freedom of Information story can pop out of strange places – but none weirder than while waiting to access the urinals in the bowels of a football stadium.
I’ve been a football fan for years, and love going to live games. I was a season ticket holder at West Ham’s former Upton Park home and when I ended up living in Sussex I changed sides (something that is very much frowned on) and started supporting Brighton & Hove Albion.
Recently – perhaps it is my age – I often have to pop to the loo. Now excuse the detail but despite having been to I reckon in excess of 500 live matches I have never ever needed to do a number two at the football.
So why increasingly when I attend games are there a string of men, mainly young, queuing up to use the cubicles rather than the urinals?
The spent penny finally dropped for me when observing the antics of a gang of youths during a particularly drab 0-0 draw. “They must be on something”, said my North Stand neighbour.
Yes, they probably are. The mysteries of what goes on behind those cubicle doors will never be conclusively proved, but the circumstantial evidence starts to mount up.
Young men out together, having a good time – why queue for ages for an overpriced pint of lager/beer that you have to drink out of sight of the pitch, when you can indulge in illegal substances almost as easily?
I know the police sometimes have sniffer dogs at the turnstiles, so I wondered how many times they made a seizure from fans in need of artificial stimulation.
The answers show that the issue of drug seizures at football runs from the Premier League right down to the non-league grounds and the substances include Class A drugs like cocaine and even magic mushrooms.
A few months after my very own “Eureka” moment in the gents’ loos at the Amex the story appeared in the Sun.
One thing I hope we can conclusively say is that when AI-inspired writing steamrollers over my job it will never find a story that way.
