NFL fans drink plane dry

Fans of the Oakland Raiders reportedly managed to polish off a plane’s entire stock of booze on a short haul flight to a match last week.

Ultra fans of the Oakland Raiders are known for the…outlandish costumes they wear at home and away games

The supporters were on a Southwest Airlines flight to Kansas City last week to watch their team play divisional rivals, the Kansas City Chiefs, when they reportedly developed a terrible thirst.

The Raiders ‘beat writer’ for the Bay Area News Group, Jimmy Durkin, was on the plane and tweeted: “Announcement on flight to Kansas City congratulates the entire aircraft for wiping them completely out of booze. Yep, it’s a Raiders flight.”

He later spoke to a popular sports broadcaster in the US, Rich Eisen, and explained there was: “A lot of beer drinking, a lot of shots. I was sitting in the back of the plane and by the time they began serving back there they were handing out beers saying, ‘this is your last one, you can’t order another’. They were getting wiped out.”

What was even more impressive, is that the plane was cleared out in under three hours. The flight from Oakland to Kansas City takes three hours and twenty minutes, however, service only begins 15 minutes after takeoff and stops 15 minutes before landing, giving the fans two hours and 50 minutes to power through all

An announcement from the crew that they had been drunk dry was greeted with “applause” but Durkin added the atmosphere remained “joyful” and there were no in-flight incidents as a result of all the booze consumed.

Responding to an inquiry from the drinks business, Southwest Airlines said it had not been in touch with the crew to confirm the story but added that its crews liked to “share moments of humour” with their passengers.

The fans were clearly confident that their rejuvenated team – having a successful season after a decade of mediocrity – could beat the Chiefs.

Sadly, if they managed to repeat the feat on the way home it would have been to drown their sorrows after the Raiders lost 21-13 in an icy cold Arrowhead Stadium.

In-flight drinking and sport has a rich history; and in times gone by it was as, if not more, likely to have been the players tucking in rather than the fans.

Aussie cricketer David Boon famously drank 52 beers on the flight from Australia to England for the 1989 Ashes series – breaking the record held by fellow Australian Rod Marsh. To add to the legend, Boon was apparently only on his 49^th beer as the plane began to approach London but the pilot added a few extra loops to give him the time required to beat the record. Furthermore, unlike Marsh who’d had to be carried off the flight, Boon walked off under his own steam and went to an event that evening hosted by beer sponsor XXXX.

Meanwhile, baseball legend Wade Boggs had an equally fearsome reputation as an airborne drinker. The Red Sox player once enjoyed 64 beers on a cross-country trip from Boston to Los Angeles and a total of 107 beers when brews consumed prior to and after the flight were factored in.