Scunthorpe
In
a dark and smelly passage under Blackfriars Bridge
in London is a metal beam stamped proudly with
the word ‘Scunthorpe’. That tells you
all you need to know. This is old style industrial
country, or it will be until Corus runs out of
people to make redundant. The name Scunthorpe is
written in hard iron. The club crest consists of
an iron bar clutched by a fist. The club nickname
is The Iron. In the Old Show Ground days, it was
said that the sky lit up when Scunthorpe scored;
more prosaically, it was apparently molten slag
metal being poured onto slag heaps at the steelworks
on the edge of town.
But
there’s another side to Scunthorpe, which
surprised me when I visited on that triumphal day
when we won promotion in May 2000. It’s actually
a very green and pleasant town. Foliage abounded.
Flowers were everywhere. Who'd have thought? So
perhaps it's just the name that gives them an image
problem. With a name that makes it the butt of
many an old schoolboy joke about Typhoo putting
the T in Britain, and which is caught by propriety
filters the world over, what chance do they have?
Going
for a drink as a Claret in Scunthorpe hasn’t
always been easy. Back in the bad times when we
played them in division four, we always kicked
off at 11.00. There was something about us that
they didn’t like, and so our games were always
finished before one. One London Clarets stalwart ‘celebrated’ his
30th birthday here with a 3-0 defeat, then getting
in an hour or so’s drinking before taking
in the 3 o’clock kick off at Goole Town.
The
below recommendations are based on my May 2000
visit. Although we since seem to have acquired
a habit of playing them in the League Cup, I haven’t
been tempted back, so at least my memories of that
golden day remain intact. It does mean that the
pubs mentioned below may have changed. I'm also
unable to give precise directions because my A-Z
of Scunthorpe (perhaps the world's thinnest street
atlas, consisting as it did of a mere handful of
pages stapled together) was lost at some point
in our return journey of triumph in May 2000 and
I'm not buying another unless I'm going back.
There
are a couple of pubs close to the station, which
presumably won’t usually have the extraordinary
security laid on for our May 2000 visit, when we
were met by a numerically superior police reception
squad. That said, one source advises that the police
care only for getting you out of the centre and
off to the ground. Some smart footwork may be called
for, therefore, in attempting the following.
Just
up the road on Oswald Road (turn left out of the
station along Station Road then right into Oswald
Road) there’s the Honest Lawyer. I know,
whatever daft name will they think of next? It
was a good pub, though. It had a small bar and,
as I recall, a bit of an outside drinking area.
My visit was rather brief, due to the clear reluctance
of the local plod to let us go for an after-match
drink, but the quick pint of something obscure
I had was excellent. They served a changing range
of beers, with an emphasis on small breweries.
Further
up Oswald Road is the town's Wetherspoon's, the
Blue Bell. I've not been in myself, as it was closed
after the match, but you know what to expect. Wetherspoon's
pubs can sometimes be a bit reluctant to serve
obvious football fans, so it may make sense to
conceal colours.
Further
afield, just west of the centre on Henderson Avenue,
was the Riveter. A cracking name
for a pub in these parts. It's described variously
as being 'close
to Safeway supermarket' and 'near Scunthorpe's
old ground'. The two sites are one and the same.
The Safeway is what replaced the Old Show Ground.
But there are so many supermarkets, and so few
football grounds. It was hard to imagine there
was once
a football ground there. I searched in vain for
something evocative. The pub was quiet on my visit
before the game, and they seemed to be undertaking
some renovation. Beer came from the excellent Old
Mill Brewery in Snaith. It's rather an odd
tasting pint, and one I enjoy, but the bitter was
disappointing
on this occasion, served too cold. Still, they
did sell Seabrook's, the world's best crisps. Cheese
and onion crinkle cut are the very best. Henderson
Avenue is off the ubiquitous Doncaster Road (continuing
west from the High Street), which will, if you
walk down it for long enough, take you to the ground,
of which more in a moment.
I
also went to two pubs in Ashby, south of the centre
on the edge of town and nowhere near the ground.
We took cabs from the railway station, and the
taxis seemed reliable. You might also want to think
about getting them to the ground as it is a long
way out, although there are also buses from the
centre. Our taxi driver told us they weren't allowed
to pick up from the ground, but they did seem prepared
to collect from the Berkeley (see below).
I
liked one of the pubs in Ashby. This was the Queen
Bess, on Derwent Road, east of Ashby High Street.
It was a rather unpromising looking, modern 'estate
pub', and something of a locals' pub too, but it
was a Sam Smith's house, and the Old Brewery Bitter
was excellent and cheap. Keeping up the industrial
theme, this pub is apparently named after a furnace.
I
didn't rate the Malt Shovel on Ashby High Street.
It struck me as a food-oriented pub, and on our
visit there were more families in there than anything
else. It offered a very unpromising range of beers
from the Scottish Courage stable, and my pint of
John Smith's was poor.
Those
who insist on drinking near the ground may be in
for some slender pickings. Glanford Park is on
the very edge of town, around two miles from the
centre. However, it’s perfectly placed for
the motorway, as grounds tend to be these days.
When you run out of road, you’re there. According
to our cab driver, the ground is technically not
in Scunthorpe. There is very little around there.
The ground is often compared to Walsall’s
Bescot ‘Stadium’, which is puzzling,
because Glanford Park was built first. That said,
they are similar: basically a box-like construction
of four identical stands with the odd post inevitably
getting in your way. Of course, these days new
grounds are ten a penny, but when it was built
the place was something of a novelty. In fact,
it was the first new English football ground since
the 1950s. There’d hardly even been any stands
built since the 70s. The story that they forgot
to specify the bits down the side for the linesmen
to run down and hence have a narrower then regulation
pitch may well be apocryphal, but they can hardly
be said to have benefited by going first. Not only
have lessons been learnt since, but this was before
the heyday of football ground development, when
pots of cash became available to build swanky new
grounds. If it had been built a few years later,
it probably wouldn’t have had posts. So,
think Bescot except in Claret and Blue. It could
be worse. It might not be in Claret and Blue. Nice
colours at least.
As
for the away end, seats were added late to this
section, previously a terrace, so it's not the
best view, and if there’s a crowd don’t
count on leaving in a hurry. In May 2000 there
seemed to be a permanent queue for the women's
toilets, while the men's smelt horribly of fish.
For
close by the ground options, one guide suggests
the Berkeley, Doncaster Road;
and the Tom
Cobleigh, next to the ground. The former
is supposed to be a Sam Smith's pub where away
fans congregate; in
the latter, away colours will not be admitted.
The Berkeley was very closed after the match in
May
2000. Past the Berkeley, the Queensway is
also suggested.
Another
fans' guide suggests that drivers looking for a
drink might head west of the ground to the village
of Gunness, where you'll find the Jolly
Sailor on Doncaster Road (again) and
the Ironstone
Wharf Inn on Station Road. Gunness is
also home to the Dark
Tribe Brewery. On this note,
Don Smith contacted
me in December 2001 to say: "Just
looked through your excellent website section
on visiting
Scunthorpe. You give a very brief mention to
my local watering hole, the Jolly Sailor, and
I would
just like to correct you on something. The
local brewery's beer (including 'Jolly Jack
Tar',
available nowhere else in the world) was served
at the Jolly
until very recently. Unfortunately Dave 'Dixie'
Dean has had to cease production - hopefully
only temporarily - due to ill health, so the
superb 'Dark Tribe' beer is not to be found anywhere
at
present. The Jolly has its own website,
which I edit." The brewery
still seems to be going in 2003, so it might
be worth a
look.
For
a fuller day out, rail travellers will find that
all roads to Scunthorpe pass through Doncaster,
and you could do worse than alight there for some
seriously down to earth drinking, with two good
pubs - the Railway and the Leopard -
right next to the station, the Plough and
the Tut ‘n’ Shive next
door to each other on West Laithe Gate, and the
excellently earthy Masons Arms pulling
plenty of pints in the market square.
Firmo
With thanks to
Don Smith
Last visited May 2000
Last updated September 2003
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