DYLAN FEINGOLD | Fighting | Contact
There will be many sore heads tomorrow across town but not all of them will be from the grog.
Returning back to his parents block on the edge of town, former-private-school-pupil-turned-university-student Martin Wilson-Carter told The Advocate that while he’d prefer not to fight anyone on Christmas Eve, he knows it’s inevitable.
Riley’s Casino And Grill, better known as the bottom pub in South Betoota, is where many of the locality’s south traditionally congregate on the night before Christmas to catch up and share a drink.
However, one thing often leads to another and police often attend the popular venue at some point during the evening.
“It’ll be nice to see all my old friends from primary school and whatnot,” said Martin.
“But, you know, I don’t want to have to punch the fuck out of them, either. But if they start shit, I’ll fucking finish it. Look, it all starts nice enough. People are backslapping each other, laughing and carrying on,”
“As the sun goes down, though. People change. The level of intoxication in the room builds up. Old grudges from yesteryear start to come to the surface and people get resentful and jealous of other people’s successes and privilege in life,”
“But after the punch-up is over, we all makeup and forget about it for another year.”
Speaking to The Advocate about the unavoidable melee at Riley’s tonight, owner Sam Pouchman said that he has ‘quite a high tolerance for horseplay’ but he draws the line at beating someone into unconsciousness.
He recalls an incident last year where a fight broke out between the farmers and the townies, which resulted in half the block being declared a crime scene.
“It all started with one thing,” he said.
“A local auto electrician looked a cattle farmer up and down then called him a, ‘brown boot fuck’ and then it was on for young and old,”
“Before long, scores of Toyota Lo-Luxs turned up packed to the loading board with townsfolk and the primary producers found themselves outnumbered. They fought a running battle down Lawrence Street, there was ripped strippy shirts and cuffed Cubans all up and down the footpath. One townsperson had the Fox Racing sticker peeled off the back windscreen of his ute. It was bad.”
“I hope for the love of God nobody dies this year.”
More to come.
