A DIE-HARD football fan has created an incredible Liverpool FC inspired floor for his outdoor pub – completely out of used beer bottle tops.
Steve Longley spent over 112 hours gluing 24,890 individual, metal, bottle tops down on the floor of his new garden boozer in Portsmouth, Hampshire.
The 36-year-old started work on the lockdown project in November last year and finally finished the bespoke creation two weeks ago.
Steve managed to collect the impressive hoard of bottle tops from his own collection, friends and nearby restaurants who were happy to help out.
The massive Liverpool FC fan decided to create a Liver Bird template for the centre piece of the flooring as a nod to his favourite Premier League team.
Incredible images show boxes full of thousands of beer bottle tops including those from BrewDog, Heineken, Stella Artois and Birra Moretti.
Steve also created a time lapse video showing the whole process with a piano version of the Liverpool FC chant Allez, Allez, Allez playing in the background.
Speaking today, Steve, the Head of Product Development at virtual events platform, Lumi Technologies, said: “The idea came up during a Friday night at a friends house last March.
“Ironically it was the last ‘free Friday’ before lockdown was enforced.
“We were basically discussing a bottle cap bar top design and then one of my friends mentioned that he knew someone that did a bottle cap floor in their bathroom, so I thought that would look awesome.
“So on that night, I came home with about 30 bottle caps and that was the beginning.
“I put the word out to friends, family etc and the caps started to roll in.
“I think lockdown helped increase some drinking habits!.
“A few local restaurants also helped me, when they were allowed to open, plus I managed to make a few bulk buys from eBay. I was pretty much collecting and receiving bottle caps right up until February, and I’m left now with a few thousand spares.
“I’m a big Liverpool fan and a friend suggested I stick the Liver Bird into the floor design so I created a template of where the different coloured caps should go and after a couple of trial runs, I was happy that I was ready to go with the main floor.
“I started the sticking on Nov 21st 20 and completed it on March 21st this year.”
Steve will now need to use clear epoxy resin to seal and complete his Liverpool FC inspired floor.
The dad-of-one shared images and video of his custom-made floor on Facebook on Sunday, writing: “It’s taken a long time but after 112.5 hours over a 4 month period, the Liver Bird bottle cap floor lockdown project is now complete.
“24,890 caps later!! Just the resin left to do now….”
His post has gained over 4,000 likes and more than 1,200 comments from impressed followers.
Tom Brown wrote: “That’s probably one of the best floors I’ve seen and I can’t stand Liverpool.
Steven Smith said: “Wow, that is amazing. Best floor I have ever seen. Well done you.”
Carolyn Bell commented: “Wow. No Words. You should be well proud of yourself. It’s awesome.”
Paula Doran added: “This is unreal. Amazing. Well worth the effort.”
And Amo Hughes added: “Absolutely amazing.”
Steve added: “I’ve received a lot of comments about patience but I actually quite enjoyed it.
“I’d go out there, put the footy on for a few hours at a time.
“I found it therapeutic in a weird way and a nice way to relax.
“We’ve got a nine-year old-daughter. She’d often come down to help me as I told her it was ‘arts and crafts’ or she’d watch a film and keep me company.
“She loves it though and is very impressed.
“My partner wasn’t overly keen on me doing the Liver Bird, she didn’t want it turning into a sports bar, but I think all of the likes/shares/views on social media have justified it.
“Well, that’s what I’ve said to her anyway.”
