As a whole, footballers tend to enjoy a night out as much as the next person. They might go to slightly more upscale establishments than the average punter, but they do enjoy going out as a group.
That is especially true when it comes to their Christmas party. Just like the majority of work places, most clubs tend to have a do over the festive period.
A lot of teams do so in London after playing a game down there, although Ireland has proven to be a popular destination down through the years as well.
Ben Foster recalls Christmas party in Dublin with Shane Long
Ben Foster had a very long career in the game, meaning he had no shortage of experience when it comes to footballers and Christmas parties.
Speaking on the Happy Hour Podcast, he recalled one trip to Dublin during his time with West Brom in particular.
The whole thing was set up Shane Long, who was at the club at the time. The striker would steal the show on that occasion, with their team also running into a number of other footballers during their time across the Irish Sea.
We had one at West Brom where we went to Ireland, it was banging. We had Shane Long who played for us, he's like the king of Ireland, he knew everything. He sorted everything out.
What we did on the Sunday for the fancy dress, we put a load of colours into a hat and you had to pick one out. Whatever colour you pulled out, you had to wear a suit of that colour...
There were some horrors in there. There was cheetah, cow print, PVC, leather, all sorts. James Morrison picked PVC, he went and got a custom made PVC suit. It was really good, but he was sweating his tits off.
I've got to say, Ireland was really good. Shane Long was bowling us around, he's got all these bars booked in Temple Bar.
Before we even got to any bars, we were walking around and there was a busker playing. He went and took the guitar off the busker and started singing, it was incredible. He plays guitar, he's a singer, he's incredible.
On that Sunday, there were a lot of teams there. I think Blackburn and Fulham were there in Dublin. Dublin isn't the biggest, everyone goes to Temple Bar and there is always the usual haunts you would go to.
The first bar we went to was hopping, they had live singers in there. We went in there and there was about 50 blokes in fancy dress and they're all footballers. People have beards on and hats.
This was the best part of ten years ago. Some of the stuff people were wearing, you ain't getting away with nowadays. I know for a fact you're not getting away with them, there were some naughty ones.
We can only imagine what some of the costumes that he wouldn't even describe looked like.
Dublin is a popular spot for English teams to come away for the weekend. It offers a bit of a different vibe and they will generally be left alone by the Irish public.
We're just raging that we missed Shane Long's performance with the guitar.
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