Well then, there are a few questions that need to be asked; the main one is - Why hasn’t someone written this before? The officious answer is that I was waiting to get more feedback so that I could give a well rounded and full review of the whole night. The honest answer is that I couldn’t be bothered and Blore was too busy. Anyway, I’m here now.
For those of you that can remember, 6 February 2010 saw the Cuckfield Town FC inaugural Charity Race Night. I’m going to try and run through the night in bullet point format as an aide memoire:
- Cheap Booze
- Fit women
- BAFTA award winning presenter in 70’s suit
- Jody in a counter-espionage jacket
- 180+ people
- BAFTA award winning presenter in pink lycra
- Laughter
- Betting
- Darkness
- Winning
- Lots of drinking
- BAFTA award winning presenter in Speedos
- Pig racing
- Tears
- Fun
- Projector overheating
- Excellent night
Even if you weren’t there, you can see that with all the ingredients above, things couldn’t go wrong. I have had some feedback, all of it good. Everyone loved it.
Christian Stevenson was a massive hit on the microphone and kept things moving at a good pace. Bert’s Mum & Dad kept MDB in check at the bar and Team Tote excelled. Ruth used all her sales experience to sell raffle tickets and lots of other people pitched in. The real unsung heroes of the night were Bert’s sister in law (Mags) and niece (Sophie) who did all the horrible backroom work for the bar… they were brilliant!
As well as the feedback, there were 5 little things that showed the night was a success:
1. That it took 3 of us 45 minutes to put more than 1000 empties in the bottle bank the next day;
2. That we made £3,000 profit (£1,500 for the club and £1,500 for Court Meadow School)
3. That 180+ people came … and stayed
4. That it was the biggest profit making and largest event ever put on by Cuckfield Town FC in their 138 year history;
5. That Bert, MDB and I felt the need to literally pat ourselves on the back the following day
Erudite isn’t really a word you would normally associate with Mick Barnes, but erudite he was in his observations about the last race of the night (I’ll paraphrase):
“If someone walked in off the street now and saw the hall in near darkness, lots of people shouting, a man on stage in his pants and pig racing on the screen, they would quickly conclude that this was a night just for locals”.
Thanks to everyone for their support and help on the night and keep an eye out for the write-up in the Middy.
