LAST Saturday night was the last race day of the season. But that apart, it was pretty much like any other Saturday night.

That makes the kind of behaviour witnessed by Press reporters who spent the evening in York Hospital’s accident & emergency department and out patrolling the city centre with the police all the more depressing.

Crime reporter Dan Bean, out on the city centre beat with the police, encountered groups of drunken men shouting and chanting; an altercation at the Biltmore in Swinegate, where a drunken member of a stag party was ejected from the bar for spitting; and a brawl at Yates’ wine bar.

Two people had to be detained after assaulting a member of the door staff, and as many as ten drunk and aggressive young men continued to threaten, shout and swear at door staff and the police.

Things were scarcely better over at York Hospital’s A&E department. Staff were struggling to deal with genuine emergencies: an elderly man rushed in after suffering a heart attack; a schoolboy who injured his ankle playing rugby; a baby with a cut eyebrow. But they told health reporter Kate Liptrot that half of all the patients they dealt with that night were there as a result of drink or drugs.

They dealt with a teenager brought in after taking magic mushrooms; a woman who had hurt herself on a hen night; a 30-year-old woman thought to have taken heroin; and a racegoer brought in complaining of head pains after drinking ‘several pints of cider’. All this plus a man who had collapsed after smoking a synthetic drug called Spice.

A Saturday night pretty much like any other, then. It leaves you despairing at the drunken, irresponsible behaviour of the minority: but also wondering at the dedication of the health workers and police officers out there keeping the peace and picking up the pieces. They really are worth every penny.