THE luckiest drunken footballer in Australia is not Alan Didak, whose close encounter with the Hells Angels could have been life-threatening as well as career-threatening, but his day-time opponent and night-time drinking mate, Melbourne's Colin Sylvia.

Even the sight of naked women dancing in the King Street strip club Spearmint Rhino was not enough to keep Sylvia awake. Fatigued from a hard game of football on June 11 and a harder night of drinking, he slowly descended into alcohol-induced unconsciousness.

Drunk and asleep, Sylvia was gently evicted by bouncers without incident. (A few days later he was quoted without a hint of irony as saying the mid-season break was an ideal opportunity to relax his mind and body.)

Without his football mate, Didak accepted a lift from Christopher Wayne Hudson, the man who now stands accused of shooting three people, one fatally, in Melbourne's CBD.

Didak's decision, the subsequent police investigation and the football club's initial farcical response, has left many holes in a story that began as a drunken adventure and ended in allegations of gunfire.

For Melbourne and Collingwood, the Queen's Birthday match that day was the perfect punctuation mark for the mid-season break.

With no game scheduled the following week, the players had one of their few in-season opportunities to slip the AFL's tight lifestyle leash and head out on the town.

But the idea of a few beers soon turned into a binge of mixed drinks and straight spirits as a group of players headed from nightclubs to strip clubs.

Eleven years earlier the previous Collingwood coach, Tony Shaw, banned his players from King Street bars, but that rule, like many others, had been quietly shelved.

After drinking at several venues, Melbourne and Collingwood stayers, including Didak and Sylvia, converged on the Bar 20 strip club. While the other footballers drifted off, Didak and Sylvia tottered up King Street to Spearmint Rhino. Drinking vodka, lime and sodas and straight shooters, they were flying by the early hours of Tuesday.

The last thing Didak needed was another drink but unwisely he accepted one — this time a bourbon and cola — from a heavy-set man with burning eyes who said he was a fan of the Collingwood forward.

With Sylvia having lost interest and heading for the comfort of his bed, Didak chatted with the fan, who had recently moved from interstate.

THE supporter, Christopher Hudson, followed two clubs. One was Collingwood and the second was the Hells Angels.

He had made a few friends and many more enemies along the east coast of Australia and was well known in the Sydney and Gold Coast nightclub scene. The one-time member of the Finks bikie gang was recruited by the Hells Angels largely because of his links into nightclubs in Queensland.

But Didak's ability to judge the situation was severely affected by hours of drinking and he apparently saw no signs of danger from the man he had just met.

Some time after 3am, the two left, Didak slipping into the passenger side and Hudson behind the wheel of the bikie's powerful black Mercedes-Benz.

Didak would later tell police he had accepted an offer of a lift home to Kew when it all went horribly wrong. It is a version of events that detectives found harder to swallow than a free bourbon.

The football club's spin initially suggested Didak was a victim who wanted to head home but was virtually abducted and driven to the Hells Angels East County headquarters in Campbellfield.

Terrified, he asked to be driven home, only to be embroiled in a shooting incident and a dangerous high-speed trip before being dropped in the city shaken, but not stirred enough to contact police.

"While in the car the person insisted that Alan accompany him to a bikie gang clubhouse. Alan felt he had no choice but to comply," a poker-faced Collingwood chief executive Gary Pert told the media when the story broke last week.

Police suspect but can't prove that Hudson, 29, bragged that he was a Hells Angel and invited Didak to the headquarters. The footballer, curious to see inside the heavily fortified premises, accepted, an act that, while foolhardy, was not illegal.

It was only minutes after they left the strip club that Didak realised his night was going off the rails.

Police believe that as the Mercedes sped over the Bolte Bridge, a high-powered handgun was produced and several shots were fired from the window.

Speeding along the Tullamarine Freeway, they arrived at the bikie headquarters around 4am. Didak, 24, was greeted by at least one other member of the chapter.

If Didak was terrified, he hid it well. When he was offered yet another drink, he accepted and stayed for up to 45 minutes before hopping back in the car, this time in the back seat of the coupe.

In the front, was Hudson still driving, with a second bikie in the passenger seat.

They sped off, flying through a red light across the Hume Highway just as a local police divisional van cruised past.

The police followed but the Mercedes slipped into the Scania trucking industrial estate, out of sight, where it might have stayed if not spotted by an early-morning worker. Hudson then cruised slowly out of the factory complex and stopped in Northbourne Road. The police, having spotted the car, pulled up about 50 metres behind. Several shots allegedly were fired from the driver's side window of the Mercedes before it sped off again.

Police did not give chase. If they had, Didak might well have been permanently delisted, courtesy of a police bullet or a high-speed car crash.

Later police would find 10 spent shells and one live one on the ground in two separate groups on Northbourne Road — meaning someone in the car fired a volley of shots before slipping into the estate and a second set when the police pulled up behind.

Because of the pressing danger of a gunman on Melbourne streets who was prepared to fire shots at police to avoid arrest, the investigation was immediately handed to the experts, the armed crime taskforce.

A police appeal that morning brought an immediate response through Crime Stoppers. One caller reported a black Mercedes speeding wildly down the Tullamarine Freeway to Melbourne with one man in the back leaning forward and talking to the driver.

Detectives traced the Mercedes to a luxury vehicle dealer who at first denied any connection with Hudson.

But detectives found the name of a Sydney woman who was alleged to have bought the car. She had once worked at Spearmint Rhino and knew Hudson.

Within 48 hours of the shooting police were looking for Hudson but they did not know where he was living and still did not have enough evidence to make an arrest.

Six days after the alleged shooting spree, Hudson is alleged to have opened fire in the city, killing solicitor Brendan Keilar and injuring stripper Kara Douglas and Dutch backpacker Paul de Waard.

Hudson surrendered two days after the CBD shooting after seeking assurances he would not be ambushed on his way to the police station to give up. He was treated for a self-inflicted wrist wound and has been shunned by the Hells Angels. He has been charged with murder and other offences and remains in custody.

The first police knew of a link between the footballer and the suspect was when they went to Hudson's apartment and found a handwritten note with Alan Didak's name and phone number.

Early last week a homicide detective and another from the armed taskforce quietly visited Didak away from the club to ask him some questions informally. They gave him a few days to think deeply before he was to be formally interviewed.

But as rumours of Didak's involvement started to circulate in football-mad Melbourne, the interview was pushed forward, to be held discreetly at the Boroondara police station rather than at the St Kilda Road crime headquarters.

But the media were waiting. It was the lead item on TV news and page one the following day.

Didak gave police a version of events. In some parts it was clear and in other parts strangely vague. He can remember the events at the strip club, the drive to the clubhouse, shots on the Bolte Bridge, drinks with the Hells Angels and the dangerous trip back to the city. He can even remember leaning forward asking Hudson to slow down on the freeway (an act independently corroborated by the Crime Stoppers call). He can recall getting a taxi home from the city after he was dropped off.

Yet he has a 15-minute memory lapse just when the shots were fired in the vicinity of police. Perhaps he passed out — a convenient but entirely possible scenario considering the amount he had drunk. This would mean he could not be called as a credible witness to the events of the shots being fired at Campbellfield in any future trials. He can't testify to events he can't remember.

No one would really know whether Didak was asleep as Hudson isn't talking and the other passenger in the Mercedes is yet to be identified.

But what Didak could not know is there is another witness — not a person but a video camera. When the driver of the Mercedes slipped into the Northbourne industrial estate to avoid police, a security camera filmed three men in the car, with the rear passenger conscious and clearly animated.

There is no doubt that Didak was and remains terrified. He fears the Hells Angels, a group with a reputation of hunting down and silencing potential witnesses.

But Didak is safe. The Angels have turned their back on Hudson for his alleged actions in the CBD. They cut him loose straight after the city shootings and "encouraged" him to surrender.

Police briefed senior Collingwood officials last week but were staggered when they saw how the player was portrayed as an innocent victim.

"He is not a suspect, he is not a victim, he is a witness and not a very good one," a senior policeman said.

Equally, police say that suggestions that if Didak had come forward the CBD shooting may never have happened is unfair to the footballer, who was guilty only of being a fool and then remaining silent on the grounds of self-preservation. But how silent?

POLICE believe he did tell some teammates, including those he was drinking with that night, what had happened after they left. Just hours after the Campbellfield incident he was on a plane to Queensland with the team.

Collingwood staff hastily briefed club president Eddie McGuire on the events as he was about to fly back to Australia from Europe.

Increasingly uncomfortable with what he sees as a less-than-comprehensive briefing, he shifted the club's position from victim Didak to last-chance Didak.

Far from Didak being an innocent caught up in events as first portrayed, McGuire now says, "he was out too late, met bad people and it was just stupid".

Collingwood has since announced tough restraints on their player, including a nightclub and booze ban plus mandatory alcohol counselling and a 1am curfew for the remainder of the season.

At yet another Collingwood press conference yesterday, the slant that Didak was a victim was finally dumped. The player fronted the media to say his actions were "reckless, embarrassing and stupid" and had damaged his reputation. "I understand if I don't comply (with the restrictions) that is the end of my career at Collingwood," he said.

Collingwood is worried that its brand is being damaged. Its first Didak news conference was held with sponsors' logos visible. They were removed for subsequent briefings, including yesterday's mea culpa.

The Hells Angels had a similar worry earlier this year when they expelled a senior member. They solved the brand issue by removing the former member's Hells Angels tattoos — with a steam iron.