Full article at -
http://realfooty.com.au/news/news/a-night-of-bullets-and-booze/2007/07/03/1183351210533.htmlFrom The Age -
A night of bullets and booze
John Silvester | July 4, 2007
THE luckiest drunken footballer in Australia is not Alan Didak, whose close encounter with the Hells Angels could have been life-threatening as well as career-threatening, but his day-time opponent and night-time drinking mate, Melbourne's Colin Sylvia.
Even the sight of naked women dancing in the King Street strip club Spearmint Rhino was not enough to keep Sylvia awake. Fatigued from a hard game of football on June 11 and a harder night of drinking, he slowly descended into alcohol-induced unconsciousness.
Drunk and asleep, Sylvia was gently evicted by bouncers without incident. (A few days later he was quoted without a hint of irony as saying the mid-season break was an ideal opportunity to relax his mind and body.)
Without his football mate, Didak accepted a lift from Christopher Wayne Hudson, the man who now stands accused of shooting three people, one fatally, in Melbourne's CBD.
Didak's decision, the subsequent police investigation and the football club's initial farcical response, has left many holes in a story that began as a drunken adventure and ended in allegations of gunfire.
For Melbourne and Collingwood, the Queen's Birthday match that day was the perfect punctuation mark for the mid-season break.
With no game scheduled the following week, the players had one of their few in-season opportunities to slip the AFL's tight lifestyle leash and head out on the town.
But the idea of a few beers soon turned into a binge of mixed drinks and straight spirits as a group of players headed from nightclubs to strip clubs.
Eleven years earlier the previous Collingwood coach, Tony Shaw, banned his players from King Street bars, but that rule, like many others, had been quietly shelved.
After drinking at several venues, Melbourne and Collingwood stayers, including Didak and Sylvia, converged on the Bar 20 strip club. While the other footballers drifted off, Didak and Sylvia tottered up King Street to Spearmint Rhino. Drinking vodka, lime and sodas and straight shooters, they were flying by the early hours of Tuesday.
The last thing Didak needed was another drink but unwisely he accepted one — this time a bourbon and cola — from a heavy-set man with burning eyes who said he was a fan of the Collingwood forward.
With Sylvia having lost interest and heading for the comfort of his bed, Didak chatted with the fan, who had recently moved from interstate.
THE supporter, Christopher Hudson, followed two clubs. One was Collingwood and the second was the Hells Angels.
Chroist. Alan Didak's certainly gotten himself into a pickle.
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