Poor Croydon often comes under great scrutiny; it featured in the top 50 ‘Worst Towns’ and is often referred to as Croy-dump by its treacherous inhabitants. An acronym for a run down, urine smelling town overrun by hooligans and OAP’s, Croydon often conjures up images of gangs in tracksuits mooching with great menace around The Whitgift Centre on a Saturday afternoon. By night they transform into youths in Ben Sherman shirts or mini skirts mulling round the pubs and bars, smoking, boozing, and living that kind of life you know you’ll be regretting by the time you’re 50 and on your kidney dialysis machine.

Being a girl growing up and experimenting with adulthood in Croydon was made easy due to the number of bars and ‘loose’ doormen that would let you past if you flashed a bit of cleavage or if you slapped on enough make up and plucked your eyebrows into oblivion, making your fresh innocent face of 15 appear 65 and balding. Me and my friend Sophie had 1 year passports at the time, and we cleverly erased our birth dates (which were written in biro as the passports were only temporary) and added on at least seven or eight years making us 23 and 24, respectively. With these passports to a life more exciting, we embarked upon what Croydon has most to offer; drinking and dancing every weekend to ‘Come on Eileen’ and The Bangles, interspersed with dodgy encounters with Croydon lads sporting bad haircuts and acne. This life of total debauchery lasted until I was about 18, when I eventually grew tired of doing the same thing every Saturday night and my life started to expand away from Croydon and towards the bright lights of London and all it had to offer. I raved and clubbed ‘til dawn but now, a weary and penniless 22 year old, I am drawn back to Croydon, and often return for a weekend away from the hustle and bustle of London.

 Croydon has stuck to what it knows and over the past few years a colossal number of bars including Tiger Tiger and Edwards have been strung together to retain its name at the forefront of drinking towns. (I went to Edwards once but there was an overwhelming stench of what could have been either cheese or vomit emanating from some source which the bar staff seemed unable to pinpoint).

However, there is one bar I can recommend that seems to retain a sense of individuality and quirkiness in a place that seems to be conforming more and more to every other town with a Lloyd’s and a Weatherspoons, and that is The good old Black Sheep Bar. The music is varied; the people don’t wear Ben Sherman and have more interesting anecdotes than, ‘fancy a snog?’ It’s definitely one for the individualist who is seeking a new and different Croydon watering hole and after working there I grew to love the place and the people so much that whenever I return it is always a pleasure to see a familiar face.

For an alternative night to the usual Croydon experience of witnessing a fight, I’d strongly suggest you try the Sheep. I can guarantee you’ll make at least one friend. And you won’t get bottled.

Story by Roxanna Mohtashemi