How to fit in at Salvation

It’s all very simple really.

The dress code

Salvo wonderfully straddles both meanings of being inappropriately dressed. Hideous fancy dress mixes with classy dresses and suits in a cauldron of sweat and subtle fingering.

The boys grace the sticky floors of Salvo in a fine selection of shiteshirts, suits and vintage sports kit, as if dated stash makes their outfit choice any more appealing.

Shorts and a T-shirt prove a delightful incentive to get drunk enough to not feel the cold and the lack of insulation means a sexual partner for the night must be found in double quick time.

Suits for daysss

As a girl you can go one of two ways. The first is to naively assume that a dress and heels will be adequate protection from not only the elements, but also from the vomit and other substances that coat the two floors of Salvation.

The second route you can take is to succumb to the peer pressure from your sports club and fashion an atrociously poor costume from cardboard and silver foil that somehow fails to reflect the artistic talent the future of your BA depends on.

No protection from the elements, rogue drinks and stray bodily fluids

The people

Salvo manages to distance itself from other YUSU nights by simultaneously attracting the best and the worst of York University. Loud mouthed and boozed up sports clubs clash with subject socials in a cacophony of chants, slurs and aggressive retching.

To fit in at Salvo then you need to be a certain type of person. One of the following four, to be precise:

1. A cheerleader: The stalwarts of Salvo on a Wednesday evening, the cheerleaders command the dance floor. The DJ plays their song on a half-hourly basis, and if you get swept into the midst of their dance performance then you very well may not make it out the same.
2. A BNOC: You walk into the club to chants of your own name, and having quickly downed a few doubles and snapped a club photo, you make your way upstairs. This is your floor. You stay in the club till the bitter end. This is your night and it always will be.

   This is what a BNOC looks like

3. A quiet, unassuming type: You got pressured into going out with your housemates, who you lost before you even made it to Parish for Jaeger bombs. You stick to the fringes, not wanting to get caught up in the drinking games or the misogyny. You gaze at the stairs to the top floor as a child gazes at the stars, a breeding ground for a level of social interaction which you could never hope to reach. You stay in the club for maybe 30 minutes maximum, before crossing the road to order a taxi and weep into a box of overcooked chips and undercooked meat.

   Where did my friends go?

4. Literally anyone else: Salvo appeals to the lowest common denominator, and you wear that like a badge of honour. There is nothing to separate you from the person next to you, and you thrive under that anonymity. You feature in the background of club pictures, peering at that nice bottom on the stairs or dodging the spreading pool of a strangers’ sick. After a night of mid-level banter you pour onto the clubbers bus, your face aglow with the feeling of fitting in.

   What

The drinks order

Your order must be as fluid as the drink you’re ordering. Early in the night you can whet your appetite with a vodka mixer or a bucket, or a VK if you’re that way inclined. As the night progresses and the stocks decrease, those who can no longer discern one drink from the next emerge victorious as they fail to realise they’ve not been served what they ordered.

The drinks connoisseurs are in uproar after having ordered a vodka red bull and received a gin and lemonade, and the sport social heavyweights are aghast at the lack of VKs to strawpedo. Despite the reasonable prices a nightly spend can easily exceed £50, leaving less money in the bank for bacon and emergency contraception the morning after.

It seems then that Wednesday is a night of pure alliteration, the four cornerstones being Society, Salvation, Salt and Pepper and Streamline Taxis.

To fit in properly at a Sports Wednesday you will sample them all.

Photos by Daniel Easton.