Stoke
"The
walls of the room were dark brown, the
ceiling grey with soot of various sorts,
and the
floor tiled red-and-black and sanded. Smoke
rose in spirals from about a score of churchwarden
pipes
and as many cutties, which were charged from
tin pouches, and lighted by spills of newspaper
from
the three double gas jets that hung down
over the benches. Two middle-aged women,
one in black and
the other checked, served beer, porter, and
stout in mugs, and gin in glasses, passing
in and out
through a side door. The company talked little,
and it had not yet begun seriously to drink;
but, sprawled about in attitudes of restful
abeyance, it was smoking religiously, and
the flat
noise
of solemn expectorations punctuated the minutes."
'Clayhanger'
- Arnold Bennett, 1910.
This,
I should confess, is not absolutely my favourite
place in the world to visit. In fact I reckon
that part of the art of living is to visit places
like Stoke as rarely as possible. It is a rare
train journey to Manchester that I have passed
through this town without giving utterance to
a soft sigh of ‘at least we don’t
have to get off the train here’.
This
is a town to pass through, if you absolutely
must. Or rather, it’s a number of towns.
Stoke is a place without a core. These are the
Five Towns (although there would appear to be
six of them), popularised by the above-quoted
mediocre and never read novelist Arnold Bennett.
Of course, to the visitor, these distinctions
between alleged towns seem entirely arbitrary
and confusing. One part of Stoke looks pretty
much like another. To call them all by different
names smacks hopelessly of assuming ill-fitting
airs and graces. I confess unashamedly to not
knowing my Burslem from my Tunstall, my Fenton
from my Longton, and indeed, my Stoke from my
Stoke on Trent, and intend to make few concessions
to such pretentiousness here. Stoke is Stoke
(the next town down the line is called, imaginatively,
Stone), and that is what we will call it, for
such a name seems to fit the place.
Or
perhaps Stokenvik would be more appropriate,
in deference to the Icelandic owners of the club.
Now, I have nothing against Icelanders. Their
country is a beautiful and intriguing geological
puzzle, and Icelanders themselves seem a pretty
together and well-adjusted people. If only the
beer was less expensive. But whatever can they,
hailing mostly from the cute legoland of Reykjavik,
see in this bleak place? Admittedly, the winter
weather will be mostly milder, but can that be
enough?
So
what else do I know about Stoke? I find it hard
to take an interest in ‘the Potteries’,
a failed attempt at making a touristic virtue
of a long faded way of life, sort of like if
Burnley tried to get people to come and see mill
chimneys. One day, with the aid of advanced trigonometry
and a bank of whirring, spooling computers, we
may find an answer to the age-old and vexed question
of where Stoke is. I mean, it clearly isn’t
a part of the North. It just can’t be.
It’s too far… south. While living
in my old hometown, it used to irritate me greatly
that their goals would feature on Granada’s
smiling Welsby round-up of action. What the hell
were they doing hanging out with all these Northern
teams? But neither is it the Midlands. The Midlands
is the dystopian ex-dreamscape of Birmingham
and Coventry, or the real ale fiestas of Nottingham
or Derby. Whatever the Midlands is, it isn’t
Stoke. Stoke is just, well, Stoke. People have
avoided facing the problem head on by handing
his patch of land the dull sobriquet of ‘the
Potteries’ and inventing another football
team, Port Vale, so Stoke can have a rivalry
with someone.
Famous
Stoke folk include Stanley Matthews (honours
shared with Blackpool, which is not something
you read too often) and TV ‘funnyman’ Nick
Hancock, ‘star’ of the BBC’s ‘they
think there’s still some life in this tired
old format’ series.
The
best thing in Stoke used to be on the railway
station: the advert for Wright’s Pies.
Outstanding pies, they told us, emphasising
the point with a clever play on words, by having
the company's name stand out from the advert
in primitive 3D. Sadly, the sign since
seems
to have gone two dimensional. Wright’s
pies, they also told us, were ‘the largest
family pie-maker in North Staffordshire’.
I liked the smallness of that boast. It’s
like being the longest standing Blackburn
fan. Or the best Burnley left-back of the 1990s.
They
seem to know their limits, Wright’s. What
is the competition in the family pie-making
market in North Staffordshire, I ask myself.
Do they
one day aspire to being the largest family
pie-maker in the whole of Staffordshire, I wonder?
How
large is the presumably bigger South Staffordshire
family pie-making firm?
One
thing to note for our September 2003 visit is
that you may not get much of an opportunity to
examine the Wright's Pies advert at the station.
Only rarely it seems do trains visit Stoke on
Trent station at the moment. Advanced engineering
work makes it rather difficult to get to Stoke
by public transport. This would of course not
normally be a bad thing, but if you are contemplating
a rail journey you may want to check thoroughly
with the bored students who staff the National
Rail Enquiries phone line before setting off.
Those dread words 'replacement bus service' may
well figure in your itinerary.
Ah
well, enough yada yada and got on with the boozers,
eh? I should warn that I’m not going to
offer a great selection. Partly this will be
because Stoke isn’t the greatest drinking
town, but also because I haven’t done that
much drinking there. I’ve been three times
as far as I can recall, once to the old ground
and twice to the new, but only once have I properly
got stuck into drinking in Stoke. I didn't go
last time (March 2003) either, which may make
recommendations out of date. So, not much to
report. Secondly, you’re likely to get
fairly unspectacular beer, unless you get lucky
and catch something from the local brewery, Titanic.
(Why don't they sponsor the team? Just an idea.)
Stoke and the surrounding area confirms its status
as neither North nor Midlands by selling neither
the hoppy headed bitters and dark milds of the
North nor the full bodied milds and sweet bitters
of the Midlands. You're in danger of getting
Draught Bass and other such compromised national
beers. On the other hand, this part of the world
is real pork eating country, so you’ve
got the prospect of some pretty good proper pork
scratchings to go with your pint.
That
first visit was an interesting trip. It was the
last game of the season, and Stoke were newly
crowned champions of the then division three.
Stoke were parading trophies and the like that
day, so a big crowd was expected. A small consignment
of Clarets arrived on the Manchester train, and
were immediately swamped by a sizeable police
presence and frog-marched to the ground. I made
it there were some four police officers for every
one of us. Any attempt to escape and secure a
quick pint was immediately suppressed. We were
emptied into the ground, sober as a cold stone.
One of my overriding memories of that day, apart
from us making a daft party of it and Mark Monington
going in goals when Marlon Beresford went off,
is that, at the post-match pitch invasion, a
fair number of Stoke fans charmingly forsook
making the most of celebrating their own party
in favour of running across to try and have a
go at us. Bless. Naturally, the stifling police
presence which had been so unwelcome before had
immediately dissipated after the game, leaving
us to face the mean streets to the station unprotected.
Theoretically, there was an option of a drink
here, but the immediate after match instinct
in Stoke is to get somewhere better at the earliest
convenience.
The
above episode points to the other perennial problem
of getting a drink in Stoke: it is not always
a particularly welcoming place for the away visitor.
In the interest of fairness (what?) when first
writing this guide I checked out one or two ground
guide websites, and all advised against drinking
anywhere near where Stoke fans might be. The
most adventurous suggested that a quiet pint
might be had in Hanley, which is sort the centre
of Stoke, and even then, only with extreme caution.
I certainly would be wary of hazarding a snifter
anywhere near the railway station too. The nearest
pubs (a former Firkin, now doubtless rebranded,
and the Roebuck, I think it’s called) should
be avoided. The fixture has in the past attracted
arseholes from both camps. On the other hand,
I have a feeling that things aren't as bad since
they moved to the new ground, and the club certainly
seem to have cracked down on their yobs, so things
may be improving there.
Anyway,
onto a few places I went to last time I went
to Stoke. I've not encountered anything as interesting
as Arnold Bennett's fictional Dragon, above,
alas.
Near
the main bus station, on Lichfield Street, apparently
in Hanley, I liked the Coachmakers Arms. Beer
wasn’t great – I think it was Bass – but
this was a lovely little pub.
The
Golden Cup, on the edge of Hanley town centre,
also rings a vague bell. I’m sure if it
had been dreadful I’d remember it more.
There’s
also one of those Hogsheads in the centre, on
Percy Street, but all these places are interchangeable,
so I’ve no idea if I’ve been in.
I
do remember the Marquis of Granby on St Thomas’ Place,
in what is apparently Penkhull. It was a large
pub on what must have once been a village green.
It was up a bloody steep hill, and once we got
there the people were jolly unfriendly. Beer
was from the Banks’s range.
I
also recall a couple of other pubs our hardy
crew got to, despite the best efforts of the
town’s unacceptable taxi services. Be warned
about the local taxis. They are utterly rubbish
and cannot be relied on to get you to the ground,
or, just as importantly, between pubs. Once there,
the Plough on Erturia Road seemed to be more
of a food pub than anything else, with Saturday
shoppers sitting down for nosh more in evidence
than dedicated drinkers. Robinson’s was
available.
There was one kind of on the way back to
the station from the ground. Caution advised, therefore.
We had worried that Corky’s on London Road
might be full of home fans, but as it happens it
was fairly quiet. I quite liked this Banks’s
pub.
The
Old House at Home, Hartshill Road was a friendly
enough place, quiet, with beer decently kept
but from a mediocre range. Who could get excited
about Tetley Bitter, Marston's Pedigree or Burton?
Like most pubs round here, it did not open its
doors until twelve and I was there before then,
but I found a stop round the corner that kept
better hours and was most obliging, if being
sufficiently unremarkable as to make me forget
its name.
Walking
back from the ground to the station - a sizeable
walk - you pass a Wetherspoon’s. I’ve
no idea if it’s good or safe as I've never
been in, but it’s there.
The
ground, the gosh-it-looks-exactly-like-everywhere-else ‘Britannia’ Stadium,
is a bit of a trek out. You really can’t
trust the cabs, although once I got one that
was driven by a Port Vale fan, who merrily told
us that he charged Stoke fans extra. The area
around the ground was a blank and a featureless
moonscape when it first opened (and oddly reminiscent
of the volcanic wastelands between Keflavik and
Reykjavik, now I come to think of it, which perhaps
explains the appeal of the place to the assorted
sons of Iceland). On last visit they seem to
have built some buildings there. There’s
apparently some kind of Harvester type place
there now. Whoopee. You’ll probably not
get in and if you do you’ll definitely
not get a real pint.
The
substantial walk between ground and railway station
can be made more picturesque and bearable by
taking the canal towpath route. Wouldn’t
like to do this in the dark, mind. We once recorded
an all time best of two different London Clarets
members falling down the grassy, muddy bank here.
If
the above doesn’t grab you, then there
is one obvious solution in addressing the timeless
problem of where to go for a drink in Stoke:
go and get a drink somewhere else. I have in
the past done some drinking in the nearby town
of Newcastle-under-Lyme, with admittedly mixed
results. N-U-L is not served by trains, so it
calls for a cab from Stoke station.
What
kind of name is this for a place anyway? On,
sure, upon, even, if we're being posh, but under?
Anyway,
the Crossways, Nelson Place, by a big complicated
bit of road at the top of one of the town's main
streets, the Ironmarket, was a dirty, filthy,
squalid, utter dive in 1999. Worth a look, therefore.
Down
Ironmarket, you'll find a pub called, wait for
it, the Ironmarket. This was another Hogshead
pub, so a reasonable if pretty predictable range
of beers was to be had, along with okay food
from a standard menu. I seem to recall being
party to an argument with the landlord over mis-labelling
of pump clips, the actual point of which was
rather lost on me even at the time.
On
the nearby High Street, there was a horrible
pub called the Albion which
seemed to be trying to cater for a non-existent
student population.
Sold fairly undrinkable beer. Avoid. Also
in this area was a pub called the Boozy
Dog. I've
not been in, I just like the name.
The
best pub in N-U-L on my visit was a little way
apart from these others. The Albert, Bandley
Street (near Sainsbury's, so just follow the
crowds) was a local pub for local people, sure,
but friendly enough. The landlord kept both the
long, narrow pub and the Burtonwood's beer in
immaculate condition. We cleaned him out of pork
pies. Can't understand, by the way, why all pubs
don't sell simple snack food for people who either
don't have the time for or just don't want a
big sit down plate of food. The mark-up must
be substantial. Toppermost service to boot. Would
you like mustard with your pie? Er, yes please.
French or English? A small jar was accordingly
advanced.
For
ideas on what to if you're not drinking,
see if you can glean anything exciting from the
Stoke-on-Trent
tourism website.
And
that’s all I’ve got. I’m aware
that this alleged guide is neither particularly
helpful nor balanced. The above may have
been a little harsh, but then, I expect Stoke
fans
wouldn’t think much of Burnley either.
Anyway, despite all the above, it’s at
least a better drinking town than Watford.
Hey, perhaps they should stick that on
a sign to the
station: Stoke - not as bad as Watford.
It's something.
Firmo
Last visited January 2000
Last updated
September 2003
Menu and disclaimer
