Blue Bottled at Bridge
A violent attack in The Bridge nightclub last Wednesday night left a Blues football player in need of twelve stitches in his nose, and another with cuts to the head.
Students James Kachel and Roger Milburn told The OxStu that as they headed towards the bar, a man put a champagne flute through Kachel's face. Milburn then tried to pull Kachel away but was hit twice in the face, before having a bottle smashed over his head. Kachel, who described himself as "completely in a daze" after the attack, was taken to hospital in an ambulance.
It is unclear what exactly provoked the attack. According to Milburn, one of the group walked into Kachel saying "Watch where you're fucking walking", but then the situation apparently diffused until later when the violence unexpectedly occurred. Another source reports that after being verbally abused, Milburn and Kachel went away and returned with four other footballers, which apparently led the non-students to feel threatened and to initiate the attack.
The two aggressors were not students, despite the club night being a student-only event. The manager had permitted the group entry because one of them was employed the club and was celebrating his birthday that evening.
Milburn was alarmed to hear that at least one of the group, who had been forcibly removed by the fire exit, managed to re-enter through the front of the building without being questioned. Manager Simon Marshall explained that this happened because most of the bouncers went upstairs to deal with the situation and he himself was occupied detaining other members of the group who had been involved in the violence, one of whom was also bleeding. Marshall told The OxStu: "It was while I was trying to gather them up that one of them bolted back in. It was an unfortunate and very surprising incident and the doormen couldn't believe what was happening."
The men who injured the students were apparently happy to have their mobile numbers passed on to the police. Kachel, from St Anne's, is planning to press charges. He told The OxStu that he was "really aggrieved" that one of the offenders was still working at The Bridge. However, Marshall has stressed that although he was with the group, the employee of the club had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack.
As a result of this specific incident, Marshall has decided that student nights will be strictly only for students in the future, saying "I feel awful that it's happened."
30th Oct 2003