Newcastle city centre on a Saturday night has long been a playground for invaders wearing L-plates and mankinis. If your day job involves wearing the captain’s armband for the town’s football team, it perhaps isn’t the wisest place to party, not when the accents you hear are as likely to be Glaswegian and Cockney as they are Geordie.
Worse still if Saturday night staggers towards 4am on Sunday morning, as Newcastle United’s Jamaal Lascelles discovered this month. A good-natured jibe of a few hours earlier can soon descend into a bad-tempered jab, when nightclubs kick out and alcohol kicks in.