The minister in charge of clamping down on binge drinking and teenage alcohol abuse was a popular member of a student society dedicated to getting drunk.

As Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, 38, has bemoaned the cheap cost of beer, demanded tougher action against drink-related disorder and called for more curbs on under-age drinking.

But in his undergraduate days he was a pillar of the Mornie Onion Society, a male-only drinking club for the sporting elite of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

The initiation ceremony consisted of drinking a yard of ale with an onion floating on top, while naked or wearing only a towel.

The society, founded 53 years ago and still going strong, will hold its annual cocktail party in the Victorian college's grounds this month.

One of Mr Burnham's former student friends said: “Everyone drinks in their university days but I find it strange that the man charged with curbing binge-drinking in this country was himself a member of an exclusive drinking society that was notorious in the Cambridge network.”

Membership of the Mornie Onion Society is restricted to male students who are members of at least two sports teams; the college has a fine reputation for sport, particularly rugby.

He may have gone up to Cambridge as a working-class Scouser but soon Mr Burnham was donning his blazer and the society's tie for a night on the town. “He was a heavy drinker,” his old friend told The Times. “The guy was wrecked a lot, as a lot of people were then. There were a lot of borderline alcoholics.”

The highlight of the year was May Week, when outsiders, particularly girls, were invited to join the members for refreshments at the end of the exam season. Mr Burnham met his wife, Marie-France van Heel, then captain of the college women's football team, at Fitzwilliam, although not at an Onions bash.

Mr Burnham's spokesman said yesterday: “It is no surprise that students sometimes have a few beers. But the entry criteria for the club were about sporting, not drinking ability - Andy was captain of the college cricket team and in the football first team. The Government remains committed to encouraging sensible drinking.”

Mr Burnham, tipped as a future Prime Minister, was regarded as the ideal candidate for Culture Secretary because of his known love of sport.

On arriving in Westminster as a researcher to Tessa Jowell when Labour was in opposition, he earned a reputation as a football addict.

Once Tony Blair came to power, Mr Burnham joined the Downing Street soccer team Demon Eyes, named after the Conservatives' notorious anti-Blair poster from the 1997 election.

A “very physical” centre forward in the team that won the brutal Thames League in 2001, he once admitted: “In all truth, we had a reputation as a fairly unpleasant team to play against. We all backed each other up quite a lot. It could get quite fruity.”

But his qualifications as a marathon young drinker have been kept under wraps until now. The culture brief includes licensing reform, a politically sensitive issue in the run-up to the next election.

Mr Burnham's biggest test on this issue came with the publication in March of the first review of the 24-hour drinking laws introduced by Labour. Critics say it has turned town centres into early-hour battle zones.

Mr Burnham resisted pressure to tighten hours, instead announcing increased fines for antisocial drinkers and prompt action against irresponsible licensees. He hinted in an interview that he would have discussions with the industry over the problem of cheap alcohol. “I think beer is probably cheaper now than it was when I was at university, if you go to a supermarket,” he said.

The origins of the Mornie Onion Society in 1955 are as hazy as the members' heads will be when they wake after their May Week revels. Over the years its title has expanded so it has become known as the Fitzwilliam College Mornie Onions Gentlemen's Sporting Drinking Society.

Liam Nicholl, a third-year student reading land economy, said: “It's mainly a group of us who meet up at Oxford Road Fitz clubhouse, then go out to town in our blazers and Onions ties.”

Alastair Hignell, who retired last week as BBC rugby commentator, was a member in the 1970s. “Each society had its own horrific concoction — ours was a mixture of cider, Martini, lemonade, vodka and various juices,” he said. “If you were spotted and questioned by a fellow Onion and you weren't wearing your tie, you had to buy the fellow a pint.

Other drinking societies at Fitzwilliam are the Shallots (for women) and the Vikings (for drinkers unable to get into the sports teams).

DEGREES OF DRUNKENNESS

—Drinking societies, long the preserve of elite universities, rejoice in a decadence as far removed as can be from new Labour’s prim crusade for “sensible drinking”

—Evelyn Waugh satirised the Bullingdon Club, an Oxford institution, as the aristocratic and destructive Bollinger in his 1928 novel Decline and Fall

—Bullingdon old boys included Cecil Rhodes, Lord Bath, David Dimbleby, Alan Clark, John Profumo, Edward VII, Edward VIII and foreign royalty

—Their time is coming again. The current Conservative leadership is dominated by former members: David Cameron, his Shadow Chancellor George Osborne and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson

—Undergraduates have been getting helplessly drunk since universities began. Historians record that there were 60 taverns around the University of Paris in the 14th century and a curfew had to be imposed on students to reduce altercations with the citizenry

—Students at Heidelberg, home of Germany’s oldest university, have organised themselves into drinking and duelling fraternities for centuries

—The Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity was founded at Yale in 1844 for those who combined in most equal proportions “the gentleman, the scholar, and the jolly good fellow”. Five presidents, including both Presidents Bush, benefited from its hearty drinking culture

—The Oxford and Cambridge drinking societies vie for the most arduous initiations. Humiliation begins on “Suicide Sunday” with a disgusting breakfast and continues with vast amounts of alcohol. The average Cambridge student consumes nine units of alcohol a night, according to Varsity magazine, more than twice the recommended safe maximum

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