Blackpool
Top pub: The Ramsden Arms Hotel, 204 Talbot Road
Hego's guide - Henry VIII's
tour of Blackpool
Blackpool hasn’t changed a lot since I was
a boy, last century. Memories. The free coach trips from Burnley to the Blackpool Mecca,
miss the return and sleep on the beach. Awaken in freezing cold at five in the morning,
sand in every crevice. Thumping hangover, abject failure to pull again, and no money to
get home! Ah those were the days.
The pubs haven’t changed much either. The
main seafront is still full of very strange hostelries with no real beer, but with very
loud music, slot machines and the smell of fish and chips everywhere. The sort of
atmosphere normally expected of a seaside town, one assumes. During Scottish holiday
fortnight you definitely do not want to be in any of these pubs, unless you are a devotee
of bar room brawls of the John Wayne variety. The Pump and Truncheon, close to the
Central Pier on Bonny Street is a Hogshead bare floorboard type of ale-house, and is a
possible exception. May be worth a try, if time permits.
However, I digress. If you are in the horse-less
carriage approaching the town, having already spied the Tower, you have two decent out of
town pub options. The first is the Shovels, which is on the edge of town in Marton,
just off the M55, near the Airport on the B5261. Not that easy to find, as Woody will
testify. Large open plan, food type of place, with a spot-on range of excellent beers to
swill down whilst eating your kangaroo or crocodile steak! I kid you not re the menu, but
no live examples of the fare available to pick and choose. Not really my cup of Bovril,
but some people may like it.
The second option, easier to find on the A583
(286 Whitegate Drive), and near the Gloomfield dump, is the Saddle Inn. Very old
(1776), cosy, multi roomed pub, with good food. Good guest beer policy, but worryingly now
out of the 2000 CAMRA guide. The pub apparently has a license to conduct weddings, which
is a bit weird.
Onwards and downwards then heading for Blackpool
North Railway Station, which of course is heading away from the ground. It is a fairly
obvious point to make but I will make it anyway, that the Blackpool fans, who of course
only surface for Burnley and Preston games, know exactly where the best pubs are near
North Station, and where Clarets are to be found. Be wary.
Before hitting one or two of the gems around
North Station, you might like to keep on driving, or indeed catch one of the magnificent
trams along the seafront to the Bispham Hotel in Red Bank Road, which
unsurprisingly is in Bispham. This is a nice friendly busy pub centred on a massive
lounge, and sells a very cheap and very creamy pint of Sam Smith’s. Top pub, very
popular with locals and tourists.
Back then to the North Station, and the very
splendid Ramsden Arms Hotel on Talbot Road. You can’t miss this splendid
imposing Tudor style building. Well you could I suppose if you don’t know what Tudor
style looks like! Inside, the bar has managed to evade the plague that is the new style of
pub interior decoration, and retains the oak-panelled décor, lavishly covered with all
types of odd memorabilia. Lots of top class beer to be had here. If however you are a
whisky freak, then this is also the place for you, with hundreds of examples of elderly
brown Scotty type water.
Close by on Talbot Road is the Wheatsheaf,
a little more of a down to earth boozer than the Ramsden, but no slouch on the memorabilia
front, with various weird wall hangings including wartime posters, and even the odd shark.
Sells Scotty type beers, but also the odd unusual guest beer. A veritable must.
The Empress Hotel on Exchange Street
behind the Station is a very large old-fashioned basic Victorian type hotel, with a large
games room, and even a big Wurlitzer organ. Cheap B&B available and acceptable
Thwaites beers. Was the only Lancashire ever present in the CAMRA guide until this year,
but still worth trying.
You might then partake of a short stroll to try
the Counting House in Talbot Square opposite the North Pier, which is one of those
extremely large converted bank affairs, which now seem to proliferate in most towns. Large
range of beers of dubious quality, but the views of the Irish Sea and the pier are worth
the trip. One to avoid however on match days is the quaintly named Hogshead pub, the Stanley
Beer Engine in Church Street close to the Winter Gardens. Decent ale, but full of
Blackpool FC memorabilia, and unfriendly locals of the tangerine variety.
Have also heard tell of the Raikes Hall
on Liverpool Road, which is an old fashioned hostelry near the estate of the same name.
Haven’t been there, but it is apparently a bowls type of pub, part of the Bass
stable, which is not exactly a great recommendation.
As you will have noted from the above, not much
of note pub-wise near Gloomfield Road. Even if there was, the very few footie fans of the
tangerine variety might make a quiet sensible Claret pint a little difficult, whilst
contemplating the inevitable three point haul.
Hego
Last updated 20 March 2000
Firmo's thoughts - 'have
they built their new ground yet?'
My contribution to this guide starts with a shocking
confession. Although I've made a few visits to Gloomfield Road, I have never had a drink
in Blackpool. Never. Not ever. My last visit was made in, I think, 1994, before my real
drinking days had begun. Hard to believe, but there it is. Since then, numerous
opportunities to return and sample the ale have been missed. This is only partly
deliberate. I do think that being asked to hand over the hardearned for the dubious
privilege of standing on the worst ground in English football constitutes taking the piss,
to be frank. Plus, this always seems to be a midweek game, and I’ve never deemed it
worth the day’s leave. There was a period a few years ago when it this fixture always
seemed to be scheduled for Boxing Day, and was always called off. The Morris Dancers in
Colne on one such occasion was the closest I’ve got in years.
Nevertheless, as well as calling the estimable Hego off the sub's
bench to contribute the above comprehensive rundown (at the personal cost of at least a
couple of pints), I had a sniff round various Blackpool sites, just to see what they could
put forward. Some pretty unsavoury stuff I had to sift through, too. This exercise was
utterly in vain. Of decent pubs these yielded none. This served to confirm my prejudice
that Blackpool fans know nothing about decent beverages, having been brought up drinking
fizzy beer in plastic glasses in hideous seaside fun pubs.
Both the main Blackpool website (www.seasiders.net)
and the ever frustrating Football Fans’ Guide
can suggest but one, and as this is the Bloomfield, next to the ground, it can
hardly be a place where Burnley supporters will be made welcome. It will, in any case,
doubtless have the shutters up on police instructions. I can't recall seeing other pubs
close to the ground, but any there are are also likely to be closed. The only other
suggestion I could track down, this time on the splendid groundhopper site the Internet Football Ground Guide, was
for the Dunes on Lytham Road.
They also give the sound advice that visiting supporters should
always check the fixtures at other northern clubs, such as Preston, Bolton and of course
our good selves. Blackpool is an easy weekender for southern supporters visiting
Lancashire clubs. This can often mean (a) trains are packed from Preston and (b) there is
something of an atmosphere around town. If a club with a reputation was playing Preston at
the same time as we were playing Blackpool, for example, there could be some problems.
This is, apparently, why Blackpool has one of the highest arrest figures of any football
league club. It becomes a venue for stand-offs between fans of other clubs. It also might
have something to do with fans honouring the fine English tradition of drinking yourself
silly at the seaside. Blackpool themselves, of course, have little support. Although they
claim to have a larger away following – and they do always bring a good number to
Burnley – Blackpool’s population is shifting and transient. People move in and
people move out. People from Blackpool leave and go to find work. Of course, they do in
Burnley too. But the difference is that this is not a football town. You could wander
around town on Saturday and be comfortably unaware that a match was taking place. You
could visit Blackpool on a lifetime of annual holidays and never know there was a football
ground there. Sure, you’re likely to see football shirts of all colours being worn
around the Golden Mile, but because that’s what people wear on holidays; it’s
nothing to do with the game.
All this means that for most clubs, Blackpool is an excellent
weekend and a good day out. I expect it’s a friendly enough place for many clubs.
However, a visit with Burnley is never less than a tense occasion. Both yob fringes come
out of play. I seem to recall that leaving the ground on my last visit was a heads down,
catch nobody’s eye kind of affair. There were bad things happening around. As a
Claret, don’t expect to be made welcome.
Blackpool’s real rivals are of course Preston, both sides
having sensibly realised that they could not hope to get a look in with the mutual enmity
between ourselves and our nameless rivals from Deadwood Park. Nevertheless, as with
Preston, Blackpool are not averse to a bit of name-calling when the time comes. My advice
is to laugh it off. As you stand there and are called hillbillies, inbreds and other such
charming sobriquets, simply look around and feel sophisticated.
This is not to deprecate Blackpool, for I do have some affection for
the place. Sure, it’s tacky, trashy and vulgar, but in a division that hosts both
Oxford and Cambridge, you need something to bring you back down to earth. I used to enjoy
coming here as a kid, after all. It’s a great place to be a kid. A stroll down the
Golden Mile affords ample opportunity to gorge on a hyperactive host of chemical filled
food. Teethaching candyfloss, Presleyesque doughnuts and a plate of moist rock in the
shape of a full English breakfast are all treats to be had if you really hate your body.
Just as thrilling are the smells. Only really cheap burgers can exude that odour. Salty
sea, saltier chips and the odd pool of vomit complete the line-up. As you progress, you
have the opportunity to sit beside joyless families in the front dining rooms of
respectable hotels and chew on overpriced fish and chips. Just avoid the seafront pubs. We
all know about seafront pubs, don’t we? They’re like nowhere else on earth. Some
of them probably still sell Watney’s Red Barrel. But for kids, picture postcard
sauciness, with the hint of big-bosomed and disappointing sex, slot machines to pour money
into and, of course, nose-bleed indulging vertiginous rides make Blackpool a heady
cocktail of pleasure, ultra-consumption and tears before bedtime. And I haven’t even
mentioned the trams, or the tower, which can be seen from Blackpool’s ground. Or
bingo. Or the Nolans. Or donkeys. Look, you’ll have to come up with your own
punchlines, okay?
But as for Gloomfield Road itself, this shed defies any attempt at
description. It is the English football ground least likely to be described as a stadium.
It looks like nothing has changed since the war. The Boer War. Ramshackle doesn't cover
it. Nothing covers the Kop End, including a roof. This terrace is divided down the middle.
Half of it is permanently closed for reasons of safety. Big clubs - yes, that means us -
are also given the Paddock when visiting. Having experienced this a couple of times, what
sticks in the mind is that the front is below pitch level and your view is usually
obscured by stewards who hate Burnley. Still, at least it has a roof. I think they’ve
now finally removed the advert for Whitbread Tankard bitter that used to adorn it, having
outlived the brew itself by at least fifteen years. And we’re working on the
assumption here that the game is allowed to take place; in high winds, it has to close for
safety reasons. The ground is, in summary, decrepit, an eyesore and an affront to the 21st
Century. It is unbelievable that such places still exist. We are supposed to live in a
civilised age. For as long as anyone can remember, Blackpool have claimed to be on the
brink of knocking down this dump and building a big, brand new, shiny, all singing, all
dancing, Blackpool ‘Coliseum’. Back when plans were first unveiled, around the
time when Harold Wilson first became Prime Minister, this was going to be a luxury hotel
and leisure development with a 25,000 seater state of the art stunner, complete with no
less than a retractable pitch and a sliding roof! With a second smaller stadium next door!
Oddly, this space age structure has yet to descend on the incongruous surroundings of the
Fylde Coast, and, having followed this farce with interest, I note that each set of
unveiled plans has been less ambitious than the last. Still, anything would be better than
what they currently have. Even a Bescot would represent spectacular progress. Even, though
I loathe the words with a passion, an out of town development. For all this pie in the
sky, Blackpool are perennially penniless, and each visit sees the old ground wearily still
in place, if not necessarily intact. Whenever you see a Blackpool fan - which is rare -
don't forget to ask them that customary question, 'have you built your new ground yet?'
It's rumoured this was the first thing Nelson Mandela asked on being released from prison.
He's still waiting.
Another nice way to irritate a Blackpool fan is to insist that they
play in orange. Under no circumstances should Blackpool be designed as wearing
‘tangerine’.
Micky Mellon is the current and natural target of local invective
when we play Blackpool, but at least this normally rouses him from his slumbers to put in
a rare good performance. In times past it always used to be Jimmy Mullen who was singled
out as the target of their appropriation. I seem to recall he was met with an avalanche of
abuse when we visited here in 1991-92. That was the day when Mark Kendall inspired the
troops to a stunning 5-2 defeat. Since then, however, this has mostly been a happy hunting
ground for the Clarets.
The ground is close to Blackpool South station, which is itself
close to the seaside. The station is perhaps a five to ten minute walk from the ground. If
you see the incongruous windmill, you've gone the wrong way. Of course, there aren't that
many trains from Preston to Blackpool South - about one train an hour. There are many more
trains that terminate at Blackpool North. This is a couple of miles from the ground,
although apparently a 22 or 22A bus takes you there. Thank to Richard Branson's cost
cutting, direct trains no longer go from London to Blackpool.
As Hego suggests, with a due note of caution, the best town centre
drinking options would seem to centre around Blackpool North station. As well as the three
mentioned above, Blackpool sources tell me that another pub in the vicinity, the Duke
of York, on the corner of Banks Road and Dixon Road, sells a very acceptable pint
of Thwaites. If you're looking for the guaranteed food and decent beer predictability of a
Wetherspoon's, the local one is the Auctioneer on 235-237 Lytham Road, a
December 1999 opening.
In the interests of research, I do hope to return here if we ever
play on a Saturday. Given the shape of the table at the moment, mind, it could be a long
wait.
Firmo
(with additional input from John Pate and Rob Slade)
Last updated 20 March 2000
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