WHEN a 58-year-old man ordered beer at a coffeeshop while waiting for a football match to start, he did not expect his friend to help himself to the bottles he had paid for.

But when his friend, Goh Ken Seng, 57, did just that, Ng Kim San lost his cool.

A dispute between them escalated to Goh flinging a glass mug at Ng, cutting his lips.

The pair then rained punches and chairs at each other with Goh throwing another beer mug at Ng, missing its target but hitting a patron on his head, court papers said.

The patron, Mr Austen David Raymond Mosbergen, 62, suffered a 4cm-long gash on his head and was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for treatment.

On Wednesday, Goh was jailed three weeks and fined $400 in a district court for disturbing the public peace and hurting Mr Mosbergen with his rash act.

According to court papers, Ng had gone to a coffeeshop at Geylang Lorong 15 on April 12 last year to have drinks and to wait for a football match due to be telecast on a TV set there a few hours later.

He ordered two bottles of beer and was joined by Goh, a part-time taxi driver, in the early hours of the next morning.

Goh had arrived with a glass mug and began pouring beer from the bottles Ng paid for.

It all went downhill from there.

Pleading for leniency, Goh said that Ng had already forgiven him for sparking the incident.

Ng was fined $200 in August for his role in the brawl.