Premier League side West Ham United racked up a whopping £1,100 bar bill on a pre-Christmas booze-up just hours before scraping a 0-0 draw, it emerged today.
The club splashed the cash at the Hilton Hotel at St George’s Park in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffs., next to the brand new National Football Centre.
Bar receipts show the side spent a wallet-busting £1,155.90 on Saturday, December 15 last year and into the early hours of Sunday December 16 – hours before they played West Bromwich Albion live on Sky TV.
One receipt, named as ‘WHU Main Bill’ and timed at 9.28pm on December 15, shows the club spent £372.05 on alcoholic beverages – including £205 on six bottles of wine.
Astonishingly, another bill timed at 12.11am on December 16 reveals the Premier League outfit forked out £774.85 on alcohol at the ‘Cross Bar’ in the hotel.
There is even a bill from the hotel bar for two Jack Daniels which is timed at 3.37am – just 12 hours before they kicked off against West Brom.
The bill includes: 13 Smirnoff Red drinks, 10 Jack Daniels, and five pints of Peroni lager – as well as a host of other spirits including Tanqueray gin, Captain Morgan rum and Disaronno Amaretto.
All of the bills – which included £4,620 on 33 rooms for players and coaching staff – were signed by Neil McDonald, assistant manager to boss Sam Allardyce.
The team – who recently returned from a winter ‘training camp’ in Dubai – also spent £300 to book a football pitch and £500 for a lecture theatre called the ‘Graham Taylor Room’ – named after the ex-England manager.
It also shows the Hammers stars booked the plush hotel’s Terry Venables Suite for ‘private dining’ between 7pm and 10pm the night before the match.
The pampered players watched television as they ate with a special instruction to hotel staff stating: “Please ensure TVs in Dining Room are tuned into Sky Sports”.
The extravagant knees-up came to light after bungling hotel staff accidentally posted the bill to another firm who had also stayed there.
One said: “From a party of 33, if most were players and didn’t touch a drop – which is unlikely – that’s a hell of a booze bill for the rest.”
West Ham confirmed the bill and said the booze-up was a ‘Christmas present’ from Big Sam to the team’s backroom staff.
A spokesman said: “This was a private bill paid for by the manager as a Christmas thank you to his extended backroom staff.”
On their website, the Hilton hotel boasts it is “home to the National Football Centre, designed for training coaches, teams and studying sports medicine and science.”
The day after the party, the Premier League strugglers flopped to a 0-0 draw away at West Brom.
Experts described the game, which kicked off at 4pm and was shown live on Sky, as “uninspiring”.
After the game, Hammers boss Sam Allardyce said he was happy with a point after injuries meant he was only able to name six substitutes instead of the usual seven for the game.
