I remember in the early 2000’s when I had an away season ticket and used to go away regularly. It was a typical London away trip, early train out of Wakefield with the other West Yorkshire Owls and then a tube from KX to Farringdon. There was a pub there which had reverse licensing hours called The Hope, so it was open 11pm to 11am. This was to accommodate the nearby workers at Smithfield Market, who worked through the night getting meat etc prepared for sale the next day.
Anyway, although this pub had reverse licensing hours you couldn’t just walk in, but because we were known it was usually just a knock on the door and in we went - except on one occasion it wasn’t quite that easy. Despite being around 8am, we knocked on the door as usual and it was Ricky who answered, absolutely pissed out of his brains. Straight away he gave it “Are ya Wednesday or what”, or words to that effect, and in his typically intimidating way. Soon as he realised we were he changed persona and let us in.
And 5 minutes later he was fast asleep in the corner! 😂
RIP Ricky - a proper character who, as has already been alluded to, most of us have encountered and have a tale or two to relay about him.