Come on!: Jack Grealish is more likely to be in action in Qatar than in Croydon
Boozepark, next to East Croydon Station, is looking to cash in on England’s World Cup heroes next month, selling tickets at up to £40 a time to enter the food and booze venue on the days when Gareth Southgate’s side is in action in Qatar.
The venue’s publicists have got so carried away with their promotional schtick that they have even hinted that there could be an appearance during the World Cup by England player Jack Grealish, when Manchester City’s £100million man ought to be 4,000 miles away playing in some of the biggest matches of his career.
Boxpark, which opened in 2016 thanks to help from a £3million loan from the local council, has been blamed for sucking the business life out of other restaurants and bars in Croydon town centre.
Encouraged by being shown in a couple of clips by Match of the Day, with hundreds of punters chucking over-priced lager into the air when England scored a goal on their way to the Euros final at Wembley last year, Boozepark’s management has decided that they can trade on that notoriety in the footballing run-up to Christmas.
Tickets go on sale on Thursday for Boxpark Croydon, Wembley and at Shoreditch – the first two venues capable of hosting up to 1,200 customers to watch what are otherwise free-to-air broadcasts on a big screen.
‘The spiritual home of live football screenings’: according to Boozepark themselves
“For those not travelling to the Middle East and looking for the next best place to catch all the action, Boxpark will be screening all World Cup games across the tournament at its three London venues,” Boozepark’s publicists say.
“Football screenings at Boxpark have become notorious…”, their choice of word, our italics, “… for surprise celebrity appearances.”
They go on to list a few slebs, including Barry off of Eastenders (doubtless doing a shouty performance of Sweet Caroline).
Elsewhere, the come-on from the publicists is pretty explicit. They state: “With celebrity guests like Stormzy, Danny Dyer and Jack Grealish himself, spaces are extremely limited and tricky to get your hands on.” Yep. England player Grealish, “himself”, when England are playing in Qatar…
According to Boxpark, “Boxpark became the spiritual home of live football screenings at 2018’s World Cup thanks to some epic scenes that went viral across the globe and the atmosphere is arguably better than the stadiums themselves (according to Grealish).”
And they say, “Tickets for the World Cup screenings at Boxpark (opening ceremony and group games) go on sale at 12pm on Thursday October 20…”. Priority bookings are allowed for anyone who has signed up for Boozepark’s data-scraping loyalty card.
“Unlike the Euro 2022 under covid-19 restrictions, Boxpark’s World Cup screenings will be a standing event with extremely limited VIP tables up for grabs.
“For England games, a single standing ticket including a food voucher is great value at £20, and prices for non-England matches vary from £5 to £10. If you want to bag a VIP table, these cost up to £250 for England games, which gets you food vouchers and jugs for a group of six people.” So that’s more than 40 quid a head…
They say that tickets are required for all screenings. Though maybe not if you are England’s star midfielder Jack Grealish…
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