The Fightfort

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We went out for Lisa’s birthday on Saturday night and had a nice, boisterous, drunken time. Lisa’s mum stayed in our house with the kids while we stayed overnight in her house. A brilliant arrangement and we didn’t have to be home too early.

The end of the night is actually the most memorable. We initially wanted to get kebabs from a South Belfast kebaberie, but our taxi arrived and offered to take us to a chippie in Andersonstown. We all hopped into the cab and Wooftie and I went in to order.

Big mistake. We unwittingly had walked into a chip shop where a fight was in the process of breaking out. In the blue corner, we had a rather thick and heavily pished individual. Somehow he’d managed to insult somebody, and the ginger guy in the red corner wanted to throw a few punches at him. Now, despite the fact that he could barely talk, the guy in the blue corner had remarkable bravado. If mouth doesn’t work, don’t even attempt to engage fists, you moron!

The ginger kid is clearly far less drunk. He’s wiry, focussed and unwilling to be talked out of fighting. The other contender has a friend trying to mediate on his behalf. However, at the same time, he is phoning some friends for backup. Wooftie and I look at each other incredulously – “phone the police, you pillock!”

But this is West Belfast, and phoning the police is totally off the agenda, even if you’re in mortal peril. And the guy was in mortal peril. We heard a glass bottle being smashed outside by one of gingerboy’s friends. No doubt about it, if he stepped outside the shop, he was going to get a serious beating.

Behind the counter, the staff are panicking. This altercation is scaring trade away, and we – as customers – are getting jostled by the two prizefighters’ attempts to get at each other. Likewise, the establishment are reluctant to phone the police. Disturbingly, we are so hungry at this point that we refuse to leave without food, despite the danger of getting injured ourselves!

Somewhere along the line – it felt like forever at the time – both contenders stripped their tops off, opting to go barechested. You’d think there’d be something macho or animal about this display, but no. It was actually rather pathetic and annoying. One girl in the shop looked terrified as the staff allowed her and her boyfriend to sneak out the back door. We held on, stoically waiting for our kebabs.

However, before the food arrived, the stupid guy got dragged outside and was being kicked and punched by four other guys as the shop staff lowered the shutters to prevent any more damage to the place. When they eventually raised it again, we expected to see a bleeding mess on the ground. But the fighters had disappeared, and the blue corner guy and his friend were limping off down the road.

Horrible scenes, full of bad dialogue – as Wooftie pointed out: “It’ll be a fair fight, only fair digs” and the classic from the red corner “I’ll rip the hairs out of your chest.” All eyes went to the ginger guy saying this, who didn’t appear to have any hairs on his chest.

Anyway, the punchline of this whole episode was the following day, telling my father-in-law about the fighting. He mentioned the pub across the street – commonly known as the Whitefort – is unofficially known as The Fightfort for the number of drunken scraps that happen there at the weekends. Cool, thanks for the warning Felix!