I was having what felt like a rare night off, playing pool with my friend Henry in Battersea. We were in a dedicated pool and snooker hall, where every table was occupied, mainly by younger men than me in little gangs. And why not? Nothing more fun than shooting some pool. Though it's a while since I have played (apart from on a very wonky table in Edinburgh) so I wasn't on top form, though there were occasional flashes of the old brilliance from around circa 1980 when I got my own 6ft by 3ft snooker table for Christmas. Lord that was a good present.
Whilst Henry was in the middle of an impressive break my attention was grabbed by an argument developing between two gangs of lads a couple of tables away. Though it seemed to be over very little, the spark soon lit a flame which exploded to a full on confrontation. My opponent was carrying on unaware whilst pool cues were being brandished and beer bottles started getting thrown, one skidding under the table next to ours and missing Henry by a few inches.
There were maybe a dozen or so teenagers involved in the fracas and they were soon setting about each other with the pool queues, which they clashed against each other as if they were playing at sword-fighting or being in a slightly too aggressive morris dancing troop. Strangely I wasn't at all scared or perturbed by the events, figuring that provided no more beer bottles came flying our way then we would not be pulled into this. I suppose it was a nice chance for me to be in an environment where fighting was on the cards and not to be directly involved in it for once.
I suppose it was slightly concerning as the violence erupted so quickly and there were only three staff on duty, two of whom were quite fragile looking women and I thought that the situation could become more frenzied and dangerous for the participants. With so many pool cues being brandished I would have expected someone to get more badly hurt and I slightly feared the sudden appearance of knives or guns.
But no blood was spilled, which makes me think that the whole scenario was more for show than anything, because if they were genuinely trying to hurt each other then they could have done a lot of damage with the cues and balls on offer to them. I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone even turned their pool cue around so that they were hitting with the thicker end, and though there was a lot of shouting and a bit of weak clacking of cue upon cue (and one cue did get broken), and some spilled beer, actually not much real aggression was going on. It quickly dissipated as everyone involved disappeared into the cold, wet night. And part of me wondered if they were all friends who had just staged so they could finish the evening of playing pool without having to pay for it (you got charged at the end of the night based on how long you'd played for). But there's nothing like a little play fight to add some excitement to your Saturday night, whether as a participant or a spectator.
Although it was a potentially horrific and spontaneous demonstration of violence, it actually ended up seeming quite funny and I just picked up the bottle that had come to us, put it on the side and we carried on playing pool.
Good old London town.
