Just before midnight, in what might be described as an old industrial lock-up, a tall Portuguese man makes his way up to the stage in the corner of the room and proceeds to sing, with unexpected panache, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. It is one of three perfectly pitched songs he delivers that night. Turns out he’s a professional, semi-retired.
The stage is a performance in itself: ramshackle karaoke equipment in the corner, tangles of fairy lights, an old wooden guitar hanging from the wall behind, and a large green shield bearing a roaring lion under the letters “SCL”.
It is a fairly standard night at Sporting Clube de Londres, a bar and restaurant built by Portuguese expats and dedicated to the country’s third most successful football club, Sporting CP.
It isn’t all too often that I venture out west. I might visit the Cow (for Guinness) or Tiroler Hut (for schnapps and cow bells), but it’s a long way from my home in the deep south. Sporting Clube is worth the journey. Canteen by day, party venue by night, it’s one of those bars that immediately sets you at ease, a holiday of a place, one where everyone, absolutely everyone, is there to have a good time, free of boring attempts to impress.
I drink Superbock lager. There’s Sagres, too, but this isn’t amateur hour. Those who need wine might have a glass or seven of an extremely passable Vinho Verde, one probably better than those in the Birkenstock-clad wine bars and infinitely more affordable.
And in the room, fuzzy blue and green lights all around, the little wooden bar serving people shots of I don’t know what, groups of friends gaggle. Though evening, canteen-style fixtures aren’t moved away, and so everyone congregates at various points on long communal tables, each one covered in white linen. Earlier, they hosted calamari, sardines, peri-peri chicken. Now, they’re littered with lager.
After an hour or so, I’m bought a shot by a portly man in a shirt so tight it might have been Spandex. I imagine his name is Miguel but don’t ask. Then people start dancing. The room is only half-full but it doesn’t matter — locals like to be convivial and they like to be frivolous, with no time for pretence. On the right evening, the room is its own stadium.
Here we have the best of London, a city so rich in diversity it is only right to be proud, just as the Portuguese expats are proud of the country they miss and the football club they follow. Not a big fan of karaoke? The Superbock is £3.50 a bottle, so you soon will be.
