Ian Cox’s move from Bournemouth to Burnley in February
2000 set me wondering whether there are two towns in the second division less alike.
Burnley is a blunt, no nonsense Northern town, a small town that carries a huge passion
for its football club, a club without which, one suspects, not many people would have
heard of Burnley. Bournemouth is known to all as a genteel, ever so slightly dull seaside
town with a geriatric population. Say Bournemouth and football is about the last thing you
think of. This is one of those places where the existence of a league football club seems
something of a historical accident. It could as easily be Bognor or Poole. There is an old
cliché that there are more Manu fans here than anything else. A wry smile greets the
timeworn quip that, with every Manu success, ‘they’ll be dancing on the streets
of Bournemouth tonight’. But there’s a lot of truth in it. A casual visitor to
the centre of town on a matchday is likely to see more Manu shirts than anything else.
This makes it a strange place to come for a game of football. It’s a quiet, rather
whimsical day out, and not a passionate or furious occasion. A trip to Bournemouth is a
chance to loiter on a sparsely populated terrace (this is usually one of the most poorly
attended Burnley games) and muse on the meaning of life, as opposed to the mindless
catharsis we normally seek from the sport. Shielding your eyes from the blinding sun which
always seems to blaze down onto the away end seems hard enough work.
Things aren’t made any easier by the odd distribution of pubs. There’s
nothing near the railway station. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing good.
There’s just nothing. A supermarket is the nearest you’ll come to licensed
premises round here. And there’s nothing particularly near the ground. Neither ground
nor station are near the centre, although the two aren’t in the same part of
nowhere-near-the-centre. You should know by now that that would be too easy. They are
miles apart. The ground comes at the end of a long street of respectable guesthouses (in
one of which I once stopped) out of the centre of town in Boscombe. This is not the most
helpful of layouts. The other season, one hapless fellow attempted to navigate himself
from the ground to the station with the aid of a map of central Bournemouth. He was only
encumbered by the fact that neither appear on the map.
Hopefully, depending on which part of the year your visit falls in, you will not have
to face the horrors incumbent in the most soul destroying sequence of words ever assembled
in the English language: replacement bus service. Such was our fate a few seasons ago.
Enjoying a post-match snifter in nearby Christchurch, we clambered aboard a replacement
bus merrily – we thought – set for further refreshment in Winchester, only to
eventually disembark to our horror… back at Bournemouth station, where, as well we
know, it is impossible to get a drink. We eventually arrived back in London hours later,
utterly sober and defeated. Still, the morning’s ride through the New Forest was a
joy, and we did at least get to glimpse the sea, which is always soothing, and something
of a novelty on a visit to Dean Court.
Nevertheless, there are worse places. Let’s go. We normally head out of the
station, across the road junction and down a street of dubious nightclubs towards the
reasonable Jug of Ale, on Old Christchurch Road. The Jug of Ale is a
Hogshead, and Hogsheads are Hogsheads. You know what you’re going to get, but it's
open, they sell beer of reasonable quality and you’ve walked far enough by now. On
last visit they even sold – hey – jugs of ale, offering four pints for the price
of three. Not that this worked out at anything you could describe as cheap. You can expect
to pay London prices in Bournemouth, and a post £2 pint is hardly unusual.
If you really can’t hack the fifteen minute walk without a drink, you will pass
other pubs on the way. There’s a Firkin and a Litten Tree if you get utterly
desperate.
On leaving the Jug of Ale, carry on up across the road and up Old Christchurch Road,
where it becomes pedestrianised and turns into a shopping street. No Saturday pub crawl
would be complete without tearing through a flock of plodding shoppers intent on getting
in the way. You will probably find it in yourself to resist the Criterion, part of
Criterion Buildings. It’s just still possible to see what this wreck of a pub must
once have been. It must have been a grand and imposing place. Now it’s just run down
and rather desperate, and a mediocre pint of Bass should only detain the thirstiest.
However, by the time you’ve reached the end of the road, you’ll certainly be
ready for a pint, so cross the square to the large central Wetherspoon's, not the first
such pub in the world to be called the Moon in the Square (Exeter Road).
No point in describing Wetherspoon’s pubs either, and this is a typical one that
serves as a handy staging post and meeting point. It’s too big, the beer range is
less than enterprising – guest beers are yawnsomely predictable and a pint of
Shepherd Neame’s Spitfire might be as adventurous as you get – and on the
evidence of last visit it seems to be trying to reposition itself with substantial areas
set aside in the style of ‘café bars’. Whatever those are. Another
Wetherspoon’s further away and south of the ground in Boscombe is the preposterously
named Percy Florence Shelley, on Christchurch Road (not to be confused
with Old Christchurch Road above – they are not the same). Both of these are listed
in the 2000 CAMRA Good Beer Guide. Having visited the latter after our recent trip, I can
report that it’s smaller than most, sold a reasonable pint of the delectable Castle
Eden Porter – sadly, only as a guest – but committed the usual sin of having
just one person serving at Saturday tea time. The long wait rankled. We had victory to
celebrate. Still, this struck me as a handy pre- or post-match pub, about fifteen minutes
down Ashley Road from the ground and the same from Pokesdown Station.
Returning to the centre of Bournemouth, just uphill from the Moon on the Square on
Poole Hill you come to the Punch and Judy. This used a small, unspoilt
and basic boozer, selling two or three Marston’s beers. Sadly, our February 2000
visit showed this to have been comprehensively ruined. Now it boasts food menus, evening
comedy shows and a range of four guest beers, the two of which I tried before leaving were
undrinkable. A sad loss.
I made my excuses and left for the Goat and Tricycle, just round the
corner on West Hill Road. Okay, with a name like that you might fear the worst, but this
is that rarest of animals, a good non-chain pub in the middle of Bournemouth. Ssh,
don’t tell everyone! Beer includes the Wadworth’s range, and not just the now
too thinly spread 6X, plus guests I promise you will never have heard of. The interior is
full of interesting, err, stuff and the food is pretty good. They do have tendency to put
cheese on top of everything, but you could do worse than plan to eat here.
As for drinking near Dean Court, pickings are slender. Up Holdenhurst Road heading
towards the ground there are one or two pubs, but I’ve never felt tempted. There
always seems to lots of blokes in Burnley shirts hanging out the doors when we play there,
however, so if you’re looking for the crowd, this might be where to go. Apparently
the nearest is the Queen's Park, but I couldn't tell you what it's like.
Further down, the Dolphin has always looked okay when I've whizzed past
in a taxi, but that's a lot of use, eh?
At the ground itself, the Dean Court Supporters Club used to be a
damned handy oasis. I long rated this club, which always struck me as a model of what we
could be doing at Turf Moor: large room, bar selling real and decent beer, cheap basic
chip-oriented menu, pool tables and a lot of football supporters. There used to be a good
mix of Cherries and Clarets in there, with a day pass costing a quid on the door. However,
they have now toughened up on their door policy. It was always supposed to be only members
of bona fide supporters clubs who had phoned up and got their name on a list, but whereas
before this seemed to be pretty much overlooked, now it would appear to be being
rigorously enforced. Apparently this is because the club has got smaller with part of the
space being used for other purposes, so they now have to keep the numbers down. Shame,
because there’s not much else round here and I did enjoy the feeling of two sets of
supporters mixing together. I suppose it might be worth ringing them up to check what the
policy is, but the last time I tried they were pretty firm and insisted there would be no
entry for away supporters on the day. Their phone number is 01202 398313.
As a result of this change, when I left what ended up being a 5-0 at 3-0 in 1998/99, I
couldn’t take refuge under the stand and phone for a cab back to civilisation. The
alternate post match pub on that occasion was therefore the Cricketers,
across the cricket field - surprisingly enough - and then a significant walk from the
ground on Windham Road, which runs parallel to Holdenhurst Road. It was a basic, grubby
house selling Usher’s, and, in common with every other pub in Bournemouth, utterly
lacking in home fans, even after the game had officially ended. Anyone who wants to get
back to the railway station from the ground quickly, by the way, had best get the number
of a decent local cab firm.
Another out on a limb option is the Brunswick, on Malmesbury Park Road,
Charminster, north of the ground. This is listed in the 2000 GBG but I couldn’t
particularly see why. It’s a big pub, empty until got there and the beers on offer
where the less than adventurous Fuller’s London Pride, Wadworth’s 6X and Greene
King’s Old Speckled Hen. This was still a twenty minute walk across the flyovers to
the ground. In mitigation, by this point the affects of the previous night’s
Battersea Beer Festival were at their worst, so whatever charm this place might have had
was lost on me.
Usual arrangement at the ground is standing on the open Brighton Beach End (so called
because it is rocky, like Brighton beach, ooh, bitch bitch) with some seats in the
adjacent stand. One year they tried to make us all sit in the stand, but it didn’t
work. We got there and couldn't be bothered queuing, so decided to take our usual spot on
what had become a home fans only terrace for the day. This should tell you something about
what a tame occasion Bournemouth is. There are very few grounds where we would attempt to
'take' their end. So we stood there, amidst a smattering of puzzled but jovial natives.
Eventually the inevitable happened and the seats were filled. The police briefly put their
heads together, then decided to let Burnley supporters stand behind the goal - segregated
by a line of police, of course. So it came to pass that police duly separated Burnley fans
from Burnley fans. Only when we passed through the line to go to the bogs did their
realise their job was futile.
Bournemouth is also home of the legendary pea fritter, a solid ball of processed peas
dipped in batter and deep fried. Yum! Emergency colonic irrigation may be required after
consumption. This and other such delicacies are available from the chippy near the
station. If slow service and low quality food are what you’re after, this place
can’t be beaten.
Bournemouth is handily placed for a range of other pre and post match options. Previous
excursions have seen us visit Poole (the Brewhouse, High Street, the Blue
Boar, Market Close, lots of serious boozers on the bay and the Bermuda
Triangle, Parr Street, Lower Parkstone, and yes, we did do the song); Pokesdown
(the Bell, a large and unremarkable pub opposite the station);
Christchurch (The Railway Tavern, close to the station, surprisingly
enough); the fine city of Winchester (the Albion, a cracking boozer on
Stockbridge road close to the station, St James’ Tavern, a good
Wadworth’s beerhouse on Romsey Road somewhere above the station and poncy tourist
oriented pubs like the Wykeham Arms on Kingsgate Street) and Woking (one
of the best Wetherspoon’s, on Chertsey Road near the station, but
not much else, and certainly not worth the disastrous excursion to Knaphill we undertook
while shellshocked by the 5-0 drubbing in 1998/99). Other tempting options are Salisbury,
Southampton or Weymouth, and there's even an intriguing Isle of Wight weekender to be had
if you're up for it, with ferries from Yarmouth to Lymington. There really is no excuse
for coming home sober. I’ve seen Burnley win, lose and draw here, so there’s
bugger all novelty left in this one anyway.
