No more snow, no more pitch inspections – things are looking positive as I walk down the Euston Road to meet Jenny, Chris Turner and Clarkey. And when I’m crossing the road outside the inexplicably popular Rocket on Chalton Street and a van belonging to Brogan’s Scaffolding goes past, I know it’s an omen.
We’re on the train to Preston, where the plan is to have a drink or two before carrying on to Accrington in time for kick-off. The journey up is fairly uneventful: QPR are at Blackpool today, and they’re travelling in numbers, but most of their fans seem to be in other carriages. We just have four in the seats behind us who are starting the day off with a nice glass of wine. West London is soooo sophisticated. As for South London, or the part of it which is Clarkey’s manor, it’s not so pleasant: he regales us with the story of how he offered assistance to a lad who was mugged outside his house the other night. Truly, he is a legend.
Once at Preston, we meet Jackie, a friend of Clarkey’s who he’s known since university and who now lives in Southport. She joined us for a drink in Manchester a few years ago, the day we played Man City – which, if I ever get round to doing London Millers Gold on this blog, will be recounted in loving detail, it truly being one of our most unforgettable trips...
Between Chris, Clarkey and Jenny we’ve racked up a decent list of pubs to visit, and we’re just deciding which should be the first as Jenny rings Accrington to check the game’s going ahead. To our utter disbelief, heavy overnight rain has left the pitch waterlogged and it’s off. Preston are away in Bristol today, so there’s only one thing for it – we’re going to have to spend the afternoon working our way through that list of pubs.
Our first port of call is the one furthest from the station, Ye Olde Blue Bell. It’s a Sam Smith’s pub, warm and welcoming, with a fire burning in the grate, and Chris, who’s getting the beers in, can’t believe he’s only being charged £1.23 a pint. If we weren’t only having one in each pub, we could happily have whiled away a couple of hours here.
Next is the Market Tavern. We walk past the Miller Arcade to get there, but obviously there’s no point taking note of omens now. Inside, the pub seems to have retained all its original Victorian features, with lots of mirrors, ironwork and brass plating all round the bar. Elvis is playing on the sound system, which makes Clarkey strangely nostalgic, even though his tastes are rooted in punk.
By now, people are starting to get peckish, so we decide to see whether the next pub on our route, the Black Horse, has food on or will let you take your own in (as the Market Tavern does). If not, we’ll investigate the chip shop in the market square. At least that’s the plan, until we go past William’s butchers. They claim to sell what’s the best pork pie in town, and at 69p, no one can resist except me – I get a couple of meat and potato pies to take home to Ted, even though he will, inevitably, compare them to the Taylor’s pies he gets from Darlo). Next door is Bamber’s cheese shop which, as you know, gets me where I’m living. It’s not quite up to the magnificence of Paxton and Whitfield in Bath, where their extensive cheese selection is sold and maintained by some very cute, very posh boys, but the mild and crumbly Lancashire is fantastic.
The Black Horse is my favourite out of the pubs we visit today. It’s a Robinson’s pub, another one with an authentic interior, featuring lots of little rooms off the main bar. It also has the only toilets I’ve ever been in where the mirrors are on the backs of the toilet doors – strange, but useful. Jackie gets a selection of crisps to keep us going, and for some reason we get on to the subject of Yorkshire pudding and the traditional way of eating it (before the main course, with lots of gravy, as a way of filling you up so you didn’t need as much meat). It turns out I’m not quite as weird as I thought I was, as I’m not alone in my preference for having it smeared with golden syrup.
A short walk away, we find the Black Bull. This is apparently the top rated pub in the area, but though there’s a very good, well-kept beer selection, the place has been fitted out with a stupid number of big screens, all of which are currently showing the Stoke-Liverpool game. Our timing is perfect, as Stoke equalise just as we’re ordering. The result goes down very well with the viewing audience. A few people leave as the game ends, so we get a table without any problems. It’s decorated with beermats got up as £7 notes, advertising a new series of ‘Minder’. Clarkey makes sure to make off with a couple so he can throw them in the direction of Chris ‘O’Greedy’ O’Grady when he goes to our rescheduled game against Rochdale. This sets us reminiscing about O’Grady being forced to do laps of the pitch on his own after our sponsored game against Brentford the other season, when he’d refused to take a wage deferral and been dropped from the squad, and how Chris very nearly did laps with him, wearing the Perspex presentation box for the match ball on his head. It would have been worth the ban from the ground, honestly, Chris...
A very short walk up the road is the Dog and Partridge. It’s a nice enough pub, probably the quietest we’ve been in, and the beer is fine, but the area where we’re sitting has a distinctive aroma which the boys are convinced is cats’ pee. This enables me to bore on about our three-cat, eleven-pawed household for a while. Fortunately, Jackie’s a cat lover, too.
Pub number six is the New Britannia. It’s been modernised to an extent, with what looks like a freshly painted bar, but it’s still kept some of the old tiling on the floor. It’s almost empty, so we colonise the comfy sofas. There’s a TV in the other room, where the pool table is, as easy to ignore as the ones in the Black Bull were intrusive, and Chris and I pop over to get all the full time scores. Dagenham have just crept above us, but to say we haven’t played for over a month and we’re fourth in the league is oddly reassuring.
From the New Britannia, we go on to the Fox and Grapes. It’s quite a narrow little pub, but we find seats at the back. This is when things start getting silly. Chris notices snacks behind the bar called a Ploughman’s Lunch, which none of us have seen before but he remembers from the Moulder’s Rest in Rotherham. He decides to treat us to this culinary experience, which consists of two cream crackers, a Laughing Cow cream cheese triangle and some silverskin onions. That sound you hear is Jamie Oliver gnawing his own feet off in frustration... Clarkey attempts to show off by throwing an onion up in the air and catching it in his mouth. It takes him four or five goes before he actually manages it, by which time the rest of us are in hysterics. ‘Ah, the North,’ declares Clarkey, ‘it’s just like the South, but with bad haircuts.’ We really can’t take him anywhere.
Before we go to our final stop on the crawl, we make sure Jackie is safely on the bus back to Southport. Without realising it, we’ve got her to the bus stop five minutes before the last limited stop service of the night leaves. Once she’s on her way, we head for the Old Vic, opposite the station. At the front is a traditional bar, with a couple of TVs showing the Everton-Man City game, but we find a quiet area at the back. Although this seems to be generally regarded as somewhere to have a quick one before you get your train, the boys say their pints as are good as anything they’ve had today.
Our train is running five minutes late, which stretches to twenty as we’re is waiting for the arrival of a crew member who’s on a delayed train coming North. Again we have QPR supporters on the train and again only a handful are near us, but forget what I said earlier about West London sophisticates as the horde in the next carriage are obviously acting up seriously. Clarkey and Chris end up rubbing up against them on their way to the toilet, which is apparently fine in the case of the girl in the short, clingy dress, but it sounds like there’s smoking, mooning and general ASBO-worthy behaviour. God knows what they’d been like if they’d lost, rather than snatching a draw. We make unscheduled stops at Crewe and Stafford, though I have no idea whether this is to eject troublemakers. The bloke sitting opposite us is seriously hacked off by this, as he’s going to miss a connection, though he mellows a little when he finds out we’re not QPR fans. ‘Rotherham. You haven’t played since December 12th, have you?’ he says. Ah, how word gets round...
We take the opportunity to rank the pubs we’ve visited today in order of preference. To remind us of which was which, we have a one-word description for each, which sounds like a mnemonic for remembering the periodic table, or something: Cheap Elvis Rooms Screens Piss Sofas Onions Station. Totting up the votes (three points for first, two for second, one for third), the winner is Ye Old Blue Bell, with the Market Tavern second and the Black Horse third.
At Euston, the police are having a word with a few of the QPR fans. Clarkey and Chris are heading for the Victoria Line, while Jenny and I walk up to St Pancras. We’re all agreed it’s the best away trip we’ve ever had with no football involved. Let’s just hope there aren’t any more of them this season.
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