A group of friends from Rhondda took over the streets of Porth dressed as Seagulls on Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of a tradition they started when they were young boys. Every year, Matthew Jones, 41, and his friends get together to celebrate Christmas with a fancy dress pub-crawl.
Last year, the group did a hilarious parody of a Jurassic park scene that went viral garnering thousands of views. This year, the group decided to dress up as seagulls for their ‘Seagulls Vs Chips theme’ which resulted in equally hilarious scenes.
Matthew who works as a Training Manager for the NHS said: “It’s been a tradition we’ve done here for 20 years. So every Christmas we have a fancy dress pub crawl where we pick a theme and then we all get different costumes, go around all the pubs. It’s just a chance for us to see our mates that we don’t see throughout the year for various reasons.”
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The costumes were in line with the year’s theme: “Fries vs Seagulls”. -Credit:Matthew Jones
The group has 20 core members but people are welcome to join and this year the group had around 30 members in total taking part in the ‘fancy-dress pub crawl’. Matthew said: “Back then, 20 years ago, none of us had kids, none of us were married. So It was just a chance to sort of just meet up and have a bit of fun on Christmas Eve. We all enjoyed it, we did one the next year and about 6 or 7 other people joined in and it just grew and grew.”
Matthew and his friends say that they’ve never had a bad reaction to their celebrations and locals usually enjoy it. For the latest Rhondda news, sign up to our newsletter here
He said: “Everyone’s smiling and they’re just happy to see you and it always makes them laugh. We usually catch the bus down to Pontypridd. Whenever we get on the bus, we’ll always have a sing along, so we’re singing Christmas songs and carols and getting everyone on the bus to join in, and they all start filming us on their phones and stuff. We’ve never had a bad reaction. It’s always been a great reaction from people.”
To mark the event’s 20th anniversary, the group decided to do an ‘Oscars-style’ award ceremony where they awarded members titles like best costume, worst costume, worst drinker etc.
Someone had to be fried. -Credit:Matthew Jones
Matthew said the community actually looks forward to the tradition each year. He explained: “It’s become a sort of a tradition in the town now. The people all message me and the other boys before, asking what the theme is, and they can’t wait to see the photos. When they see the photo posted online, they always go, ‘Now, it feels like Christmas now we’ve seen the fancy dress, now it feels like Christmas.’ So, it’s become this sort of little folklore in the town.”
Started in 2004, Matthew said he doesn’t think the tradition will ever stop, and might end up getting passed down generations. He said: “I can’t see it stopping, to be honest with you. We’ve gotten to the point, now, where some of us have got kids that in two or three years time could start joining us. So we have the next generation coming along with us. So I can’t see it stopping. We all enjoy it. Like I said, this is our annual chance to just get together and have fun. So unless health gets in the way, I think, we’ll do it until we all die.”