Sin is the only place worth going to in Ipswich

When you hit 18, Ipswich offers you three places to get royally pissed: Vodka Revs, Liquid (now called Unit 17; still a shit name, still a shit club) and Sin. No one can afford Vodka Revs, no one wants to go to Unit 17, leaving your only option as Sin.

Situated next to a fish and chip shop, Sin is literally just one building with one window. Every single person in the town between the ages of 18 and 24 pays their pound, holding out their wrist ready to be stamped (even though the one from last week still hasn’t rubbed off) and then let in. Sin is the only place you want to be on a dirty Thursday and a Saturday night in Ipswich.

You have to queue for ages in one single file line stretching all the way back to The Plough.  Running up and down the queue are reps giving out stickers for free entry to Rays. Rays is literally the same building as Sin – there is a door leading from Sin to Rays. It looks the same, sounds the same, and basically is the same. But it’s Rays, and Rays is shit because it isn’t Sin.

Anyone who’s anyone is queueing for Sin

Once you are in, there is nowhere to go. That is it. One tiny room with a laminated floor and a bar along the back wall. As soon as you get through the door, you are already in the next queue for the bar with everyone you know. And when I say everyone I mean everyone. In Ipswich, everyone knows everyone. Not only does it look like a school disco, but is basically a school reunion every weekend. Everyone from your primary school, high school and sixth form are there. Those private school girls that you used to have fights with when you were 14 and at the local state? They’re there. The fit, rich, Ipswich school boys you spent your teenage years stalking? They are there. That weird boy who tried to get with you at that house party? He is there too, probably still trying it on. You have to accept there is no avoiding anyone. And why would you want to? The night is just one big group of reunited friends hugging and getting nostalgic together.

Ooo high school friends

With paint peeling off the walls, no working doors on the toilets and a floor so sticky you lose your shoes, it doesn’t sound like the type of place you have to dress up for. Well, this is where you are wrong. Ipswich girls love to dress up and wearing a black body con dress, boobs pushed up as far as biologically possible and heels so high you can hardly walk without twisting your ankle is a must for Sin. Some girls brave the trainers, but their outfit has to be extra tight and sparkly to make up for it.

The only thing cheaper than the outfits in sin is the drinks. I never take more than £30 out with me in Ipswich, and £20 of that is saved for the taxi home. Another Jägerbomb? Why not, it’s only a pound after all. The resident DJ keeps the classic RnB classics blaring out all night and you dance outrageously until around three in the morning. By this time, screaming matches are starting between the girls who never got along at high school. A fight is breaking out between the boy who is jealous of that bloke who is getting with his ex -girlfriend from sixth form. You know, the one he hasn’t spoken to since he left for uni.

It’s time to leave. Everyone is stumbling towards Cardinal Park, stopping for a chicken burger from the burger van outside Unit 17 and sit on the wall outside Nando’s, heels off, waiting for the taxi to arrive. You can imagine my confusion when I moved to Norwich to go to UEA. There’s a whole street of clubs? There’s a choice of clubs? The clubs have more than one floor, have multiple dance floors? All my new friends kept saying how small the night life is in Norwich compared to where they from back home. Maybe now they will understand why this caused me so much confusion.

There are just a few hours left to vote for the most tragic hometown club in the UK.