This is not what people think of when they think of Kent. As we all know, Kent is the 'garden of England', full of pleasant scenery and unreconstructed Tories. But this is different. This is a working area, with a strong maritime tradition. The Medway Towns could almost be said to form a Northern-style enclave in this very Southern county. Of course, now Chatham's docks are filed firmly under 'heritage', and Rochester has always chased tourism with its brilliant Norman castle and willingness to flog its Dickens connections to the hilt. But even there, there are estates, small terraced houses and backstreet community locals. Real people live here. It's all the more interesting for it.
And there are many excellent pubs too. I can't think of any other place in the First Division where the pubs are so friendly and, in some cases, even welcoming of football supporters. If you get around some of the below pubs, you'll drink pints of excellent quality beer from a diverse range of small, independent breweries, often from the county of Kent itself. Really, what more do people want? Alright, so it's a long way from Burnley, but I can't understand why this is such a consistently underrated day out. This trip should be compulsory for all our members.
Beers to look out for include those made in nearby
Chatham. Flagship brewery, based at the docks, does
a range of suitably nautically inspired beers - Admiral's,
Destroyer, Trafalgar and so on - along with lots
of occasional brews. Doesn't matter what you get
as they're all excellent. Sadly Ales of Kent, also
from Chatham, seems to have disappeared. Shame -
I liked their dark, rich Stiltman. Another beer prevalent
in this part of the world is Shepherd
Neame, of Faversham. They are one of a handful
of breweries that claim to be Britain's oldest,
and although opinion is mixed, I quite like their
beer. The Spitfire is recommended and widely available
these days while the Master Brew is okay, although
the Bishop's Finger might be best avoided if you
have to remember where you live afterwards.
And so to the pubs. Without further ado, the undoubted
pick of many good places is the Will Adams,
which has all you want from a pre-match meeting pub.
This long, narrow pub has, on a number of visits,
consistently proved to be the best boozer in town.
It might be best described as basic but friendly,
and for a change it's football-friendly too; the
bar staff wear Gillingham shirts, go to the games,
and supporters mingle here. Be prepared to talk about
your team. Compared to the miserable attitude you
get in so many towns, it's a breath of fresh air.
Importantly, their beer is good too. When they know
we're coming they often tend to stock the sublime Harvey's best
bitter - a personal favourite and one of England's
finest - and the dangerously drinkable Hop
Back Summer Lightning. They know their ale, and
the range is ever-changing, generally favouring small
breweries. If you're feeling foolish, they also usually
have real cider on.
Food, meanwhile, is mega cheap, quick and chip-oriented, and there is often a sufficiently hot chilli on the menu. Exactly what you need, in other words. The jukebox is good and basic, and pool and darts can be played. It's not exactly next to the ground, but so what? This place is warmly recommended.
Also on an earlier visit, modesty doesn't quite forbid me from saying which football pub guide they had printed off and stuck to the wall. I was humbled. (Naturally, this guide adheres to strict ethical standards, and I was therefore careful to preserve my anonymity.) One factoid trivia fans may like to memorise is that this pub is named after a local adventurer, immortalised in the bad 1970s tv series 'Shogun', starring Richard Chamberlain.
The Will Adams is on Saxton Street, off the High Street. It's about a ten minute walk down the High Street from the station, which makes it 15 to 20 to the ground. For night matches, they open at five.
It was the landlord of the Will Adams who broke the news of the sad demise of one of my favourite Gillingham pubs of yesteryear, the Prince of Guinea. Down on Medway Road by the docks, this was an excellent Harvey's pub, and also home to parrots housed in large ornate cages. We liked the people too. A few seasons ago we charged down there only to find the place closed. It's a distance from anywhere else and we like Harvey's, so we spent a while trying to train the parrot we could see on the other side of the glass to ring the bell, in the hope of alerting the human occupants of the pub to our presence. Alas, it proved an intractable bird. More modern methods were called for, and in response to a mobile phone call, the landlady roused herself from the bath, came down and opened up early. This was service beyond the call of duty. We duly tore up the drinking plan, and stayed longer than we really had time for. Alas, on a later visit the place had changed hands, the parrots were gone - although the cages, oddly, remained - and the walls were adorned with worrying posters advertising theme nights. We've later learned that Harvey's had sold the lease and the pub no longer stocks their beers, although apparently on a good day you might get a pint of John Smith's! How are the mighty fallen. It no longer merits the substantial detour. We shall hold on to our memories.
Another pub in the vicinity, and one that milks the nautical theme for all it's worth, is the Barge, on Layfield Road off Pier Road. Without the Guinea to go to it seems stranded, but in the interests of research I finally paid a visit following the night match in March 2000 when Ian Wright scored that significant equaliser. The pub looked small from the outside but went back a long way, and had some severely sloping floors which could, and indeed did, test the balance of someone at the end of a long day. It was only a brief stop, but I had a very quaffable pint of Joshua's Ale, a beer brewed for the pub by the Flagship brewery. They also look to have a pleasant patio for drinking on when the weather suits round the back, judging from their website.
One word of warning, should you choose to go to these distant pubs. For reasons we can only guess at, Gillingham cab drivers refuse to pick up from pubs. If you wander, you're facing a long walk in both directions.
Nearer to the station, a pub called the Frog and Toad, on Burnt Oak Terrace, is a good stop. This is yet another very friendly place. The landlord is clearly knowledgeable about his beer and happy to chat about it. He's certainly mastered the art of looking after his cellar; in two visits the beer's been one of the best kept pints of the season. Fuller's London Pride plus a beer from Flagship are always on, along with one ultra-obscure guest, we were told. For the brave, they also specialise in Belgian beers. Definitely worth a look, and less than ten minutes from the station. They too have a website.
Closer to the station still is the Dog and Bone on Jeffrey Street, just around the corner, down Victoria Street and off on your left. This is, yet again, a welcoming pub, with friendly bar staff. I was a bit worried when we went in the first time, as it was the first of the day and all the beers were too strong, but they now seem to have got that out of their systems, and on our last visit they were selling a pint of something very good of reasonable strength from the Flagship brewery. Again, you never know what beer you're going to get here. They should have two or three on, ever changing. The pub is decorated with all manner of weird stuff, and you absolutely must see the splendid series of spoof adverts on the walls. This sounds a bit weak, but they are genuinely hilarious, and if you see the Skegness advert, you'll know what I'm talking about. Even better, it's one of the few good pubs that opens at 11 o'clock - most seem to be 12 o'clock openers - so keep that in mind for Saturday visits.
If you continue along here, you'll come to a couple of basic-looking Shepherd Neame pubs, which I've not been in because they've always been shut at the time of the morning I tend to be around. It was outside one of these pubs in the early 1980s that the sadly unapocryphal occasion of the Burnley team coach pulling up to ask for directions to the ground took place. Yes, this really happened. Anyway, if you turn right here down Arden Street you're on your way to another decent pub. It may look unpromising, as there's no visible sign, but keep on for the Roseneath. This is a true free house, stocking a changing range, so it's hard to guess what they might be selling, but the chances are there will be something good in it. On the last visit it perhaps wasn't what it used to be, but they once endeared themselves to me by selling one of my favourite pints, the coriander-flavoured Nethergate Umbel. The pub is a bit grubby, perhaps a bit studenty, and of course there's nothing wrong with that.
Go back up to the High Street and cross over for the Will Adams, as advertised earlier. Just down the street from there, on the corner of Marlborough Road, is another pub, the Falcon. Nothing wrong with this place, but by this stage it's usually time for Will Adams and then the game. I made an effort to call in for the first time in years in October 2002. It was a bit more basic that I recalled, and very quiet in the early evening, but again it was friendly and the beer - can't remember what, unfortunately - was fine.
A pub further out is the King George V on Prospect Row in nearby Brompton. I was in here some years ago now, and it was rather a jaunt from the centre. It had one, long narrow bar, full of naval memorabilia, and sold a range of beers.
But the absolute pick of stupidly far out drinking
places has to be the Upper Gillingham Conservative Club on
Canterbury Street. That 'upper' is a clue; it
was through town, uphill and keep going... and
keep going... and then some. That's one of the
reasons why I wouldn't recommend this. Another
is, of course, the fact that it's a Con Club.
I know, I know, I felt very bad about it, but
I'd had my injections first, wore my Che Guevara
t-shirt throughout, and I washed it all out of
my system with a few pints in the Bromley Labour
Club on my way back into London. But what can
I say? It was the only local entry in the CAMRA
Good Beer Guide that we hadn't been to, so it
had to be done. Getting in wasn't easy - no open
door here - but a flash of CAMRA membership cards
helped, as did pretending we weren't football
supporters. I understand others who tried later
were not so fortunate, so they'd clearly cottoned
on by then. If a load of football fans turned
up, they'd probably call the police. Once in,
it felt weird drinking under the glare of Margaret
Thatcher and whoever the leader of the party
was then. But of course, the beer was very excellent,
being the aforementioned Stiltman as a guest,
as well as something from Shepherd Neame as standard.
Jolly good, now we don't have to go there again.
As for directions to the ground, it's easy enough to find from the station (fast trains from London Victoria or slow from Charing Cross / Waterloo East / London Bridge, unless engineering works intervene). Turn left into Balmoral Road and then Gillingham Road, Linden Road and Redfern Avenue and you should be near the ground. You'll certainly be able to see the floodlights somewhere along here.
For those arriving by train, the pub nearest the station (the Southern Belle, is it?) looks like a ghastly hole, and apparently appearances do not deceive. Pubs close to the ground are few and are certainly not recommended. Why bother when you can drink excellent pints at the pubs above?
The Priestfield has changed quite a bit since Burnley first started playing regularly here. It used to be a nondescript lower division shed, and now is only partly so. A couple of stands have been built in recent years. On our March 2000 visit, the corner on which we formerly stood had been demolished, and a new stand was taking shape. The ground was lit down that side with temporary floodlights on trucks, and after the game as we stormed towards the Barge and past the skeleton of the emerging stand, we could see them being lowered. It took them an extraordinary amount of time to finish that stand, but now it looks pretty tidy.
Following that, away supporters were housed on the
only part of the ground that hadn't changed, an open
terrace, split down the middle with home fans in
the other half. There was good and bad in this. On
the one hand, you don't get many chances to watch
football on the terraces these days, and I like that.
Move about a bit, watch the game from several different
positions, and if you don't like the people next
to you, go somewhere else. You can - it's a terrace.
On the other hand, if there was any kind of crowd
you never got much of a view, and there was no
roof, and the food and the toilets were laughably
bad (laughable, that is, unless you needed to get
something to eat or go to the toilet).
All past tense now, as time and the Taylor Report wait for no fan. Gillingham came up at the same time as us, which means they've had their three years to go all seater. So our next visit will see us seated in some other part of the ground.
Despite the friendliness of the town centre pubs,
don't mistake this for a genteel backwater. Although
traditionally a lower division side, Gillingham
have undergone a tremendous revival since threatening
to go out of business a few years ago, and have
supporters who are proud of their club and able
to generate an atmosphere. They also have a huge
catchment area to draw on, being the only league
club in Kent, although quite a bit of the local
population is London overspill who still support
their traditional clubs. They are opponents worthy
of respect, as our ultimately victorious tussle
for promotion in 2000 showed, and like ourselves,
they haven't exactly spent their time since then
fighting relegation.
One other bit of trivia about Gillingham is that legendary Claret and Fantasy Drinking League Champion Shaggy Dog once walked here from Burnley, with others, as a result of a badly misjudged act of faith in the team along the lines of 'if we don't go up this season I'll walk to the first away game of next season'. We didn't. He did.
Beyond Gillingham itself, there are many drinking options in the surrounding towns. The London Clarets elite drinking squad has in past years made its pilgrimage by boat, or at least by the ferry across the Thames from Tilbury to Gravesend. The defeat or drab draw we tend to experience here is somehow more palatable when a boat journey has been involved. It's soothing. The scenic route via ferry from London takes in Barking (the Wetherspoon's Barking Dog next to the station and the excellent Young's pub, the Britannia on Church Road, but not the dreadful Spotted Dog), thence the frontier town ruins of Tilbury, which is as about bleak and scummy as Essex gets, and where I have never been tempted to stop for a drink, and then across the river to Gravesend (the Windmill Tavern on Shrubbery Road which thinks it's a country pub but where the beer is good, and the dark and gloomy basement of the Somerset Arms on Darnley Road by the station) and finally Gillingham. The Tilbury-Gravesend crossing takes about seven minutes, and the other side is so close you feel you could walk it. The ferry has apparently been reprieved after the threat of closure, which is a relief. I like to live in a world where services like this still exist.
Incidentally, one pub positively to avoid in Gravesend is the Echo in Echo Square. After cabbing it down there one time we had no sooner stepped over the threshold than the pub was mysteriously deemed 'closed'. Odd, there we were willing to give them our money and at least two punters had full pints. That's what you get for not being local, I suppose. A less friendly pub I have not seen in a long time. In fact, what a miserable set of joyless bastards they were.
Intermediate stops between Gravesend and Gillingham could include Chatham, where the Alexandra, Railway Street, was an excellent Shepherd Neame pub several years back, although the Little Crown, a long way down the High Street, wasn't so great on our visit in October 2001; and Rochester, which has some good Shepherd Neame pubs around the centre, and the outstanding Man of Kent on John Street, a friendly back street boozer with a good guest beer range majoring in Kent beers, including those from the excellent Goacher's brewery. They even gave us free food on our last visit! Unfortunately we then made the mistake of visiting the Golden Lion on the High Street, which is not one of the better Wetherspoon's.
We've also previously, on our way back, done Northfleet (a bleak place, with the Rose on Wood Street a basic but extremely welcoming Shepherd Neame pub) and Dartford (with the reasonable Wat Tyler and the Paper Moon, both on the High Street, and the splendid Tiger on St Alban's Road). Those with time to spare may also be tempted by Canterbury, which has good pubs hidden amongst all the tourism.
It takes all sorts, and those who don't fancy the beer might get some pointers from the Leisure section of Medway Council's website. Perhaps an afternoon in Rochester, taking in the Castle and Charles Dickens Centre, would suffice?
But for the drinkers, this is one of the best days out of the season, and should be known and celebrated as such. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't look forward to our annual trip to Gillingham. Who knows, we might even get a win here one of these years. In the meantime, trust in the beer.
