Advance notice of a local festival in two months' time.
Ainsdale Cricket Club has informed Southport & West Lancs CAMRA that they will be holding their first food and drink festival at the Cricket Club from 11th to 13th October. While they will have gin and rum bars, street food, bands and DJs, the main emphasis will be on the beer and they intend to have around 40 different beers and ciders on offer. They want to showcase some local breweries as well as some more obscure ones.
On Friday night, 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm, some of the brewers will personally showcase their products. On Saturday they will be open 2.00 pm to 11.00 pm, and 2.00 pm to 8.00 pm on Sunday.
The organisers tell me that they are hoping to make it an annual event. I'll provide more details when I learn them closer to the time.
I have just written an article for the local papers about watching the World Cup in pubs; it was largely derived from this article on the British Beer & Pub Association website. My article, like the original upon which it was based, was quite upbeat, but in reality I'll be avoiding any pub where football is being shown. I'm simply not a fan.
Someone suggested to me that I was being slightly two-faced in writing positively about something I didn't really care for, but I don't agree. The articles in the paper are not about me or my preferences, but are intended to push real ale and pub-going to the general reader. My sole criterion when writing about a pub or bar is whether the real ale is in good nick, or at least reasonably so. Thus far I have changed my mind and decided not to write about four pubs after I had tried their beer. If the pint I am served is acceptable, I will write about it, even if the pub or the beer is not to my personal taste - again, it's not about me.
As for sport in pubs, if fans can be encouraged to go to the pub and share something of a collective experience instead of sitting at home going through a slab of lager alone, it might conceivably encourage them to go at other times, although I understand there is little evidence that such a cross-over actually happens. While football fans watching in a pub can be very noisy and take up a lot of space, some don't drink very much while the game is on; one licensee told me that a few can make a single pint last the whole match, and vanish as soon as it's over. That to me does not look like getting into the spirit of things.
However, if my little article encourages just a few more people to watch football and drink beer in the pub rather than at home, it will will have done its job.
Following my post yesterday about forbidden topics of conversation in pubs, it occurred to me that there probably are some topics best avoided in certain circumstances.
In Merseyside, the Orange Lodge marches every year in Liverpool and Southport on 12 July, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne when the forces of William of Orange defeated those of James II. In Liverpool, this used to be a much bigger matter than it is today.
My mother told me that as a little girl she'd been enjoying watching a parade marching down the end of her street in Kirkdale, Liverpool, a mainly Catholic area at the time, until her anxious mother dragged her indoors as it was an Orange Lodge march. Catholic and Protestant divisions in the city were much more pronounced and sometimes resulted in violence, no place for a little child. There was even a Liverpool Protestant Party until the early 1970s who usually sided with the Conservatives on the Council.
In such an environment, which I expect still prevails in parts of Northern Ireland, it may have been wise to remain quiet about religion and politics in any pubs where you couldn't be sure who was listening. On 12 July 1986, I think it was, I went to my then local in Southport for a pint, but when I entered, a row of people wearing lots of orange stared at me in a not especially friendly manner: I had picked up the top T-shirt from the pile that morning, hardly noticing the colour. I looked down, saw it was green and decided I wasn't thirsty after all.
In January 2016, I wrote about risky activities that anti-alcohol campaigners don't go on about:
There are many risks in life, most of which don't get the same attention as drinking: crossing the road, mountain climbing, sailing, pot holing, rugby, boxing, driving too fast or singing The Sash My Father Wore in a Sinn Fein pub.
Not that I know of anyone who's actually tried that.
I've no interest in sport, but I expect a similar attitude prevails in circumstances where football rivalries have a tendency to spill over into violence: in some parts of the country it would be foolish for a football fan to go into a pub favoured by the rival team's supporters. Yet, funnily enough, I've never heard anyone say you mustn't talk about sport in a pub. Mind you, if they did, some pubs would fall silent. My point is that it's just religion and politics, not sport, that are picked out for disapproval, which is inconsistent, to say the least. However, as Tandleman has informed me, consistency is overrated.
Except perhaps where tribalism - whether religious, political or sporting - prevails, I'd still maintain that generally there shouldn't be taboo topics in pubs.
A few asides:
The video shows the Irish Rovers playing a humorous folk song written by Tony Murphy of Liverpool. It has the line: "My father he was orange and my mother she was green." This describes my background although, unlike the families in the song, neither of my parents were fanatical.
I was once playing in a folk club in Hampshire and the person immediately before me had sung this song, with everyone joining in enthusiastically. I got up and commented that, as it happened, my father was from the Orange and my mother from the Green. The sea of uncomprehending faces told me that they hadn't a clue what I - or the song - was on about; I didn't explain.
In Northern Ireland during the late 70s, a young punk was cornered by a gang who demanded to know whether he was a Protestant or a Catholic (my mother told me this had sometimes happened to her as a girl - she'd try and guess what they were before answering). He said, "Atheist", to which they replied: "Protestant atheist or Catholic atheist?"
With the Open Golf coming to Southport, Birkdale to be precise, the Grasshopper in nearby Hillside tells me that they are putting on 'The Open mic night' which will very loosely have a golf theme. It will an acoustic-only evening (so not deafening!) to celebrate the Open without the 'mic', and anyone who is so inclined is welcome to join in.
Pete Rimmer of the Bothy Folk Club will be running proceedings, and I've been asked to go along and contribute a few songs.
The Grasshopper always has a good range of real ales on offer, and is at 70 Sandon Road, Southport, PR8 4QD, handy for bus and train.
Southport Golden Balls, brewed for the
2006 World Cup, proved popular and was
retained under the name Golden Sands
Not being a sports fan, I was quite surprised to learn that there are some special laws governing the consumption of alcohol at football matches - not sports events in general, just football. I learnt this from an article by Matthew Hall, associate lecturer in law, including sports law, at the University of the West of England.
He points out that, while alcohol can be consumed in 'direct view' of sporting events at rugby, cricket and horse racing, none of which have been immune from disorder recently, consuming alcohol in 'direct view' of football matches remains forbidden. This has led to the absurd situation in a Norwich hotel which is next to the football ground where guests in pitch-facing rooms have to agree and sign 'FA Match Day Rules' when a game is due to be played. One rule states that: 'No alcohol is to be consumed in hotel bedrooms during the match and for a period of one hour before kick-off and one hour after the final whistle has blown.' The rules end with: 'These premises are controlled by Norfolk Constabulary.' If your room is not pitch-facing, or if you are watching the match in the hotel bar, there are no restrictions. I wonder whether anyone has actually been arrested for glancing out their hotel window at a match while sipping a tin of beer?
I'd guess that this law was motivated by a fear of drunken football hooliganism and, more generally, a simple fear of the ordinary people of this country gathered en masse. Our ruling classes have always been jittery about mass gatherings, which is why measures such as 'kettling' are employed against political demonstrators. Historically, such fear led to the Peterloo massacre by cavalry at a peaceful political rally in Manchester in 1819. Today, football causes frequent mass gatherings of people in far greater numbers than any other activities, sporting or otherwise; they know they can't ban football, but they'd really prefer it if all fans watched it at home on TV.
This is much the same mentality that demonises pub going, describes town and city centres at weekends in 'Wild West' terms, and sees alcohol and uncontrolled ordinary people as a real threat. As I said, I have no interest in sport but I don't see why football fans should be singled out for special treatment that is not applied to the followers of any other sport. It seems especially perverse, seeing how often beer companies have sponsored football events in the past. Football fans are being subjected to unjustifiable discrimination based on ignorant prejudice.
It seems to me that there is something desperate about being an England football fan. For half a century, 1966 has been held up as a great moment in England's sporting history, even though with the passage of time it increasingly serves to highlight how much the national team has declined since. I do recall the competition, but I didn't watch any of the matches. The shops were full of tacky memorabilia featuring World Cup Willie, the England mascot: you could even get World Cup Willie rolykins, which, as I recall, didn't roll as well as the Dalek ones that I owned.
A year or so ago in a discussion programme on TV, a Scot in the audience said that 1966 was 50 years ago, so get over it. Frank Skinner, who was on the panel, replied that Bannockburn was 700 years ago, so get over it. I agree with both statements: if your access to national pride is solely through history, it strongly suggests that as a nation you are living on past glories. A few days ago, both Radio 2 and Radio 5 Live devoted an afternoon to celebrating that far off sporting achievement. I fail to see why both stations had to be taken over by this because there was nothing to stop people changing the station if they wanted to hear the programme. I suppose it was a good excuse to save a few bob in production costs.
Greene King's tribute
Greene King, manufacturers of the the most boring IPA in the universe, have decided to mark the anniversary of the event by producing a beer called Bobby in tribute to the 1966 England captain, the late Bobby Moore. It will be a blonde beer brewed to a strength of 4.2% to represent the final 4-2 score. Apparently the design for the pump clips and beer mats was inspired by the logo of this year's film Bobby about the sporting legend. I have nothing against Bobby Moore, who seemed to be a genuinely popular public figure both during and after his football career. I just hope the beer isn't just a cheap cash-in and is instead a product worthy the high regard that many football fans still hold him in. The problem is that it's brewed by Greene King.
At least it's appropriate in one way - Bobby Moore was known to enjoy a drink.
When I began this blog in March 2009, one of the first links I installed was to the Hillsborough Justice Campaign: as someone born in Liverpool, I have always felt strongly about this terrible disaster, and the terrible injustice that followed. How the Establishment seriously thought that Liverpool would eventually just shut up and go away, I do not know. I can only guess that, not only do they not understand Liverpool, but they also don't understand ordinary human nature. A sense of injustice does not fade away in time: if anything, the opposite is true.
To remain true to the themes of this blog, I will concentrate on one specific aspect of the matter; alcohol. All other aspects are - at last - being covered thoroughly elsewhere.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster when the dead were in the improvised morgue, the injured were in hospital and the traumatised supporters were making their way home, the first priority of senior police officials was to find a scapegoat. They knew they had badly mishandled the situation, but this was only four years after the miners' strike when most of the the media had stood shoulder to shoulder with the government in demonising a workforce that only wanted to save its jobs and protect its communities. They must have felt confident they could cover this one up too, and what better to blame than booze?
95 of the 96 dead were tested for alcohol, including children: the 96th victim didn't die until four years later. Police photographers were sent out to photograph litter bins, rubbish in the road, and even motorway verges, to find 'evidence' in the form of discarded beer bottles and cans that Liverpool supporters were drunk. Stories were leaked to the press which uncritically followed the party line of blaming drunken hordes for causing the crush and behaving disgracefully; in particular, the claim that "Some fans urinated on the brave cops" immediately - and quite deliberately - suggests people who have had a skinful.
The Establishment went into overdrive to protect its own:
Papers released by the Hillsborough Independent Panel show that Thatcher ordered the Government’s response to the Taylor Report in August 1989 to be toned down to avoid criticising South Yorkshire Police.
In 1996 Bernard Ingham wrote to Liverpool fan Graham Skinner: "Who if not the tanked up yobs who turned up late determined to get into the ground caused the disaster? To blame the police, even though they may have made mistakes, is contemptible."
Boris Johnson wrote in 2004 that, while Hillsborough was a tragedy, "that is no excuse for Liverpool's failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon."
Thus it can be seen that the myth of the drunken fans turning up late, demanding to get in without tickets, creating a dangerous crush and, ultimately, causing the disaster itself was firmly established. Johnson's and Ingham's comments were made even though though the Taylor Report had previously exonerated the fans of blame in 1990. As recently as the last couple of years, lawyers for South Yorkshire Police at the Warrington inquest deliberately repeated the myth that fans' drunken bad behaviour was in some way a contributory factor: fortunately the truth had by then become undeniable, the fans were exonerated again, and the deaths ruled unlawful.
The 70s and 80s were full of stories about drunken football hooliganism, and there was undoubtedly plenty of it at the time. The fact that hooligans were only ever a tiny percentage of fans as a whole didn't deter the media from blaming the many for the actions of the few. Against that background, it is easy to see how the Establishment's Hillsborough myth, based on the fiction of a drunken mob, took root so firmly.
Conclusion: I have often read in the press a shocked 'explanation' for violence or other criminal behaviour that some offender had been on a 10 or 12 hour drinking spree. Anti-alcohol campaigners regularly make assertions, often with extremely dodgy 'evidence', about the level of antisocial behaviour caused by alcohol. Back in 1989, people were then, as they still are now, attuned to associate drinking with violence and disorder. The Hillsborough myth both tapped into that prejudice and propagated it further, and in doing so condemned the bereaved to suffer for 27 years. That prolonged agony must be the greatest injustice of them all.
A personal note: I went to the Blood Tub beer festival last week, and later went on to my local. After the equivalent of a 10 hour session, I walked home safely, locked my front door after me, took out my contact lenses, hung my clothes on the chair and went to bed. If the media were right about alcohol, I should have been an out-of-control, violent yob. For the record, I don't follow football, but I do care about injustice.
According to Carlsberg UK, pubs can expect to gain at least £60 million of extra business this summer because of Euro 2016. As Carlsberg UK is sponsor of the England team and of the competition itself, you might argue that they would say that, wouldn't they? They will make 10,000 kits available to licensees across Great Britain consisting of fixture posters, planners, flags and wigs to help add to the atmosphere surrounding games. Flags and wigs? Isn't that football as playschool? When, for instance, Star Trek fans dress as their favourite characters, they are generally mocked, but when sports fans dress stupidly and paint their faces, it is somehow depicted as endearingly loyal and, when national teams are involved, patriotic.
David Scott, director of brands and insight (yes, really) at Carlsberg UK, said: “We know that 75% of pub goers watch football, presenting publicans with the perfect opportunity to engage existing customers and draw new ones in." Before accepting that unexpectedly high statistic, I'd want to see the supporting evidence. Or, to put it another, way, I frankly don't believe it.
In recent years, I have known several licensees who have taken out Sky Sports because they do not pay their way, and came across yet another last week. I'm certain that some of those who have kept it will be making a loss, but continue to provide it as a service for their regular customers. Licensees with Sky Sports have told me that many of the crowds that come in for football may have one or two pints during the entire match, with many vanishing as soon as the final whistle is blown. There are, of course, customers like myself who, faced with a noisy crowd of cheering, shouting and swearing men (they are mostly men) will turn around and go elsewhere.
Sport is not as popular as devotees (and Sky Sports) like to claim. Apart from big name events such as Wimbledon, the Cup Final and the Grand National, the ratings on terrestrial TV for sports events isn't spectacular, and they are often beaten by dramas and soaps. Despite this, we are fed the myth that we all love sports. I'm from Liverpool, home of Liverpool and Everton FCs and the Grand National, but I know many people whose interest in sport, although perhaps not quite as non-existent as mine, is certainly only passing rather than devoted.
At least those Sky Sports banners act as a warning to those who don't get excited by what is, essentially, the simplest sport on the planet. I find cricket boring, but it does have something more to it than simply: "Kick that ball into that net."
I shan't be watching Euro 2016, but then - like a lot of people - the only enticements I need to go to the pub are good company and good beer.
I've just read that a Birmingham licensee has been told that if she shows Sky Sport illegally again, she could end up paying £50,000 and may even be sent to prison. This only the latest in a series of prosecutions of pubs and bars, and if you put 'pub illegal sky sports ' into Google, you'll find loads more. Sky says that it is committed to protecting pubs who invest in legitimate Sky Sports subscriptions, and while there must be some truth in that, I'm certain that protecting Sky's profits is the main motivation. There is nothing wrong with that in itself - Sky is a capitalist company, and it is the raison d'être of such companies to make profits - but does Sky represent good value for money?
The Sky website gives no indication of charges, but I read in a newspaper article that Sky costs pubs around £15,000 a year. Recovering that amount requires a massive number of bar sales. I have come across pubs who discontinued Sky because it wasn't paying its way. I have also been in pubs where: the sport is on but no one is looking at it; the pub is largely empty; or where people have turned around and walked out when they've seen that a noisy, large screen showing sport is dominating the room. I am usually in the last group. I have been told that, even when you have a pub full of sport fans, many of them make one or two drinks last the whole match, which doesn't do wonders for the takings.
We in this country are often described as sports mad, but this is all hype generated by the media which stands to gain if it can encourage more of us to tune in to sporting events. The reality is that sport is a minority interest that often gets far fewer viewers than dramas, soaps, and even so-called reality shows. Big name events, such as the Cup Final, the Grand National, Wimbledon and the Olympics will always get lots of viewers, but these are the exceptions. Big crowds of males (they're almost all males) in front of large, noisy screens do deter some drinkers, including people like myself who tend to drink rather more than they do. I know I'm not the only one who prefers not to be encircled by a crowd of testosterone-fuelled fans shouting pointlessly at a referee who is hundreds of miles away.
I have no doubt that some pubs find providing Sky Sports worthwhile, but I'd seriously doubt that the massive investment required would help less successful pubs, and possibly may have a detrimental effect. When Sky salespeople are extolling the worth of their product to a pub or bar, do they explain that their product may deter some custom? Or are they just peddling the myth that we are all enthralled by sport?
I think I'm becoming fed up with the authorities' schizophrenic attitude to pubs. This thought was prompted by reading Boris Johnson's pronouncement that "one of London's many fantastic pubs" is the best place to watch the World Cup. He was announcing that there would be more late buses and taxi ranks to enable football fans to get home safely because the time difference will mean some matches will end after the last Underground trains have gone.
It reminds of me of other national occasions, such as the Olympics or royal weddings, when inanely smiling politicians dole out licence extensions "so that we can all celebrate as one nation", or some such prattle. At times like this, pubs are great British institutions, unique in the world, part of what made Britain great.
At all other times, pubs are a problem, responsible for binge drinking, disorder on the streets, violence and injuries. Duty has to be raised, minimum prices considered, and a flood of intensive propaganda published to tackle an undesirable social scourge. In my last job, some of my colleagues were amazed if I happened to mention about going into town centre pubs at weekends. They looked unbelieving when I told them I saw very little trouble; clearly the propaganda that town centres are like the Wild West at weekends has done its job.
But when politicians want to benefit from the feel-good factor that a national occasion might foster, it's all: "go down the pub, enjoy the party, let your hair down".
But then, should I be surprised that politicians can be two-faced?
I won't be watching any matches, but I don't need such excuses to go to the pub.
