I've been in the big smoke this weekend and I thought I would do a football related history tour to amuse myself while Mrs R&W is in her seminar. I started with this place. Shabby pub tbh but with major (claimed) historical significance to followers of ALL football. Located about half a mile from Leicester Square (and the 'decent' pubs!) this shocker of a pub is owned by Shepherds Neame. There is remarkably little memorabilia in here, given its (claimed) significance to MORE THAN ONE popular world sport. Anybody recognise this place and its significance? (NO Googling!) - If I told you the name it would be too easy! please log in to view this image
I'm partial to a pint of London pride, but the only fullers pubs I can think of around the square are, the harp, the roundhouse, and the lamb and flag which I work just down the road from, one of them?
yup know it well, bit of a dump tho,which of course means the fa was founded by masons- some things never change, btw its a shepherd neame pub.
Yep - My bad. I'll update my original post. The birthplace of football - and rugby too. You would have thought it would be a magnet for football and rugby fans from all over the world - yet the pub itself has one poxy cabinet in the corner with a few old newspaper cuttings.
Sorry to veer off the topic but Shepherd Neame...... I was in America recently and tried a new hard cider there called Angry Orchard. It's very nice as a commercially produced drink, is 5% and I probably drank 50 or more bottles of it in the 3 weeks I was there. But I was equally chuffed to find that Tesco have started selling it when I came home. But oh dear....! It is produced by Shepard Neame under licence, and bears absolutely no resemblance to the real thing in terms of colour, taste, smell etc. Question is why have they changed it ? Drinks such as Corona, Sol, Tsing Tao I believe are imported directly from their country of production ? Shepherd Neame have managed to take a really enjoyable drink and totally ruin it.
If I was running that pub I would make sure it was all over the tourist guides, sporting magazines etc. I would approach every football league club for one of their shirts to hang in the bar. I would get every piece of memorabilia I could - and have signs outside and plaques etc - photos of those involved. But first I would tidy the place up - it makes some of the dodgy places down at the bottom of town here in Swindon actually look decent - and they aren't. It's a goldmine - an untapped opportunity to attract football AND rugby enthusiasts from all over the world!
there are many things that make a "brew" different cheddar ales make a super pint called potholer and others, it is made from amonst other brands using Bairstows "pale ale malt mash " imagine going 660 miles qaway and finding a micro brewery in the NW of Scotland using the same malts and having beers completely different in taste... we were able to compare locally as we took a barrel of the local cheddar ales up there ... eg channel Islands sell a lot of coca cola a weeks worth of ingriedients is shipped there weekly, they just add water and co2 do the yanks send over the raw ingriedients ... like highly concentrated apple juice? I doubt it .. and there in lies the tale, cider is basically apples and 0, most other drinks are blends...