Watford
“Shopping, cultural enlightenment,
eating-out or relaxing in one of our many parks -
Watford has it all... Did you know that the babies
and young children’s store Mothercare first
started off in Watford with a large factory in Cherry
Tree Road." - Official guide to Watford, 2002.
The
thing is, honestly, that I can't think of anywhere
worse to go drinking in our division
than Watford. I'm not trying to irritate the good
people of this dull London satellite, and many of
our own members live doubtless happily in that neck
of the woods, but I must speak as I find. Watford
is the worst drinking town in the First Division,
without question. In the interest of fairness, I
did consult one of our then Watford-dwelling members
when the time first came to compile this guide. Her
considered opinion was that Watford was 'crap'. So
much for balance. And she’s since left Watford.
I'm always glad when we're scheduled
to play here during the week, as at least it means
we haven't wasted a Saturday on the place. It frees
up a weekend for something more interesting - like
going absolutely anywhere else.
The
town is unremarkable in every aspect, and the ground
is distant from everywhere, particularly the main
railway station. (On seasons where we’re
not playing them, the gentle passage of our train
through Watford Junction is generally met with
the Pavlovian response of ‘at least we don’t
have to come here’.) You can see the ground
from Watford Junction, looming distantly behind
a shopping centre, your attention captured by the
odd collection of floodlights stuck to its roof.
As is clear, it’s a way from here, although
Watford is well served by public transport and
has a striking collection of different railway
stations, as befits a commuter-based economy.
Despite
its distance from the ground, I still think Watford
Junction is your best bet, particularly as it’s
handy for the best of what pubs there are, and
is served by a sometimes regular and occasionally
even fast service from Euston, on odd moments between
engineering works and weather-related mishaps.
Alternatively, Watford High Street station is nearer
to the ground and, err, the High Street, and trains
run there from Euston too. Watford is also served
by the thankfully final stop on the ludicrously
overextended Metropolitan Line of the London Underground,
although by the time you get there it’ll
have been some hours since you emerged into daylight,
and it’s probably wise to take a packed lunch
and something improving to read. When you ultimately
fetch up in Watford, you’ll still be a long
way from anywhere. (From here go right out of the
station down Cassiobury Park Avenue, right onto
Shepherds Road, left along Rickmansworth Road,
right down Harwoods Road and you’re on Vicarage
Road, eventually.) Only fools go to any of the
other Watford stations.
Enough
trainspotting. Let us proceed to the unfortunately
slender pub pickings. It has to be said, I don’t
think people actually ‘drink’ in Watford
as we understand it. Sure, I concede that at weekends
they may loudly and ostentatiously swill confections
of bottled alcohol, but this is not the same thing.
Having found few pubs worthy of recommendation
on past visits, when I first forced myself to write
this guide I urgently scoured the Watford sites
(and what a poor collection they were) for pub
guides. I found none. True, one offered some information
for visiting supporters, but merely recommended
that they drink in the ground, before going into
some detail about the local fast food options.
Point proved, I feel. The CAMRA Good Beer Guide,
tellingly, in many years has given the whole place
a wide berth, and there aren’t many towns
with league status you can say that about. The
local branch of CAMRA has a website,
but they say little. Nevertheless, I have on previous
visits experienced the following places.
There
are a couple of possibilities not far from Watford
Junction station, albeit not close to the ground.
Firstly, resist the large and sprawling pub right
by the station, which I have a feeling has been
re-re-branded as the Pennant or something similar,
following a spell as the Flag and Firkin. This
tends to be shut, and has never been impressive.
There
are three pubs to be found by turning right from
the station along Station Road, until you come
to the dual carriageway of St Albans Road. There
on your left and across is the White Lion, an unremarkable
pub. It has a basic public bar with a pool table,
and in November 2000 when I last called sold a
mediocre pint of Fuller's London Pride and a pint
of Courage Best that I'm told was good, but I can't
believe any pint of Courage can be.
Going
straight across St Albans Road from Station Road,
you come to Langley Road, and the Bedford
Arms,
a large and smart pub. It has, on past visits,
sold Tetley bitter and London Pride, and I don't
think I've ever had a good pint of either in there.
The Tetley's on one visit just didn't taste right;
on another visit the Pride was rather flat. It’s
the sort of standard pub you might walk past elsewhere
that you’ll end up going in round here. With
enough imagination, you can make yourself think
that the windows' red and blue coloured glass is
Claret and Blue.
Off
Langley Road on Stamford Road (and not on the adjacent
Nascot Road, oddly enough) you’ll find the
Nascot Arms. On a quiet street by a children's
playground, this used to be a regular stop, and
remains a good pub in the context of the town.
It once was a small, cosy and slightly grubby place,
but has changed a great deal. Inside it's now been
opened up, the bar has been moved to provide more
space, and it's been wholly re-decorated in the
sort of colours they paint pubs these days. They’ve
enjoyed something of a football-friendly reputation
in the past, and our gang certainly felt welcome
there. That said, it has changed hands since then,
and the service on my November 2000 visit was on
the very slow side, with the lack of bar staff
suggesting they weren't expecting a matchday crowd.
To be fair, things had looked up considerably when
I called in again in November 2002. The beer, unfortunately,
comes from Greene King, which is a pity as they
are by far the worst of the regional brewers. The
IPA is insipid, while the Abbot can get chewy.
Fortunately on my last visit they had a guest beer
in the form of Nimmo's XXXX, which was much more
acceptable. The pub also offer an extensive Saturday
menu, including snacks and big platefuls, and my
food was good.
From
around here the ground is more or less straight
down. If you get back onto St Albans Road and turn
right, you’ll be heading towards the centre.
St Albans Road becomes Rickmansworth Road, and
if you continue down this and then take Cassio
Road on your left, you’ll come to Vicarage
Road and then the ground. Give yourself 25 minutes.
However,
you may want to break the long walk by making a
couple of other stops. There are two pubs south
of Watford Junction on the way to the centre and
ground with similar names: The Estcourt
Arms on
St John's Road and the Estcourt Tavern on Estcourt
Road. These are known by locals as the Bottom and
Top Estcourt respectively. St John’s Road
runs parallel to Station Road, off St Albans Road,
or off Clarendon Road left from the station, and
Estcourt Road turns south from this, towards the
High Street. Much as I try, I can't make that sentence
simpler, so if you're that bothered, get a map.
The
Estcourt Arms is, usually, a small and friendly
corner pub, with a little seating outside, where
we sat following our opening day defeat of the
Waddle year in 1997, watching the traffic go by
and realising that our team was hopeless. Inside
it's neat and comfortable, with one small room
and one less small room, and best of all, it doesn't
sell Greene King IPA. The far superior Adnams is
the normal beer on offer here, and it has always
tasted good. In November 2002 they had a couple
of other beers on, including a forgotten guest.
It can get crowded after the game. For what it's
worth, I think this is consistently the best pub
in Watford. With one exception, it’s generally
been a friendly pub on my visits. That exception
came when we played Watford in that horribly disappointing
FA Cup Quarter Final in March 2003. The whole day
was very strange. I have made numerous visits to
Watford, but this was something different. For
once, here was a big game. Thus the week before
the internet was awash with Clarets who’d
never ventured south to Vicarage Road (even though
we play there every year) wanting to know where
the ground was. And on that fateful Sunday, Watford
pubs we have drunk in many times before were suddenly
shut. This pub, normally very accommodating, let
us down badly that day. We’d arranged to
meet and sort out tickets in here, but although
it was clearly open for Watford fans they refused
resolutely to open their doors to us. Presumably
now the big moment has passed they’ll once
again be grateful for our custom and our money
as they have been many times before.
Fortunately
we found solace in the pub across the road, the
Wellington Arms. They didn’t mind selling
us beer, and it was soon full of Clarets. Despite
the paranoid security of so many other pubs that
day, Watford and Burnley supporters mixed happily
after the game. The pub is fairly modern standard
inside and beer was okay if not sensational, with
Fuller's London Pride available. When we drunk
them out of that we were unfortunately left with
Courage.
The
Estcourt Tavern is a larger, more modern place,
and regrettably another Greene King house. It used
to rather unprepossessing, and was not a favourite
of mine. Watford is not a hostile town, but there
were people in here in November 2000 who were.
However, having been back in November 2002 it's
now been transformed. It's been completely refurbished,
seems to have got bigger and is now smart and airy.
It's all a bit respectable and perhaps rather bland,
but I think it was an improvement. They had an
extensive Saturday food menu – at a price.
Queen's
Road is another street that runs off St John's
Road, close to the railway line, and on here you'll
find a pub on a corner called, oddly enough, the
Pub on the Corner. I thought this place was alright
on my November 2002 visit. It was a big room filled
with non-Watford-specific sporting memorabilia
and dedicated to pub sport: dart board, pool table
and, best of all, table football dominate. It was
quiet on a Saturday lunchtime, but had the feel
of somewhere that would get 'lively' of an evening.
There seemed to be a changing beer range with no
regulars. Only one was available on my visit. Can't
remember what it was, but it was okay.
To
get to the ground from this clutch of pubs, head
down Estcourt Road or Loates Lane (from the bottom
of Queen's Road) and across Beechen Grove, and
you’ll hit the High Street. Once there, the
direction you’re pointing in takes you to
the ground. If you find yourself wandering around
the Harlequin Centre (a shopping centre) you're
not lost. Just push through to the other side.
There
are some plastic pubs on the High Street, including
the predictable Wetherspoon’s, the Moon
Under Water. However, be warned that pubs on this stretch
tend to employ door staff and may be reluctant
to admit obvious football fans, particularly in
colours. If you’re desperate for a pint,
stagger your arrival and cover up. We got this
wrong in 1995, when the doormen objected to someone’s
colours. We were not admitted to this sanctum.
I realise now that this was a piece of good fortune,
as in November 2000 I finally managed to take a
look in, and as a result can honestly report that
this is one of the worst of all Wetherspoon's pubs.
It was singularly unwelcoming, and the attitude
of the bar staff was utterly shoddy. Although the
usual display of pump clips was provided, only
two of the beers they were advertising for sale
were available. Greene King IPA (again) and Courage
Best (bloody again) was the less than spectacular
choice, although they claimed to sell better beers
such as Shepherd Neame Spitfire and Fuller's London
Pride. I pointed out that the time-honoured practice
is to turn around pump clips when beers aren't
available, and they told me this was against their
rules. This is wrong, as in doing this they're
effectively advertising something they cannot sell.
Presumably, the idea is that when you can't get
the decent pint you want, you settle for something
mediocre instead. Oh, and plastic glasses too.
A couple of women we were with ordered spirits,
and asked if they could be served in proper glasses.
They were told all drinks were sold in plastic
glasses on matchdays. When they persisted, they
answer was, do you want the drinks or not? This
pretty much sums up the attitude of the place.
Of course it's busy, because they offer cheap drinks
in an expensive drinking town, but it's rubbish.
Avoid.
We
have a couple of other suggestions. Sheffield-based
Watford supporter and evidently knowledgeable beer
drinker Chris Stride says:
"You
were correctly harsh on Watford, but there is one
place to go - the West Herts Sports Club on
Park Avenue. Six real ales plus decent food and
a relaxed
atmosphere. If you're lucky enough to play us in
mid-November there might be a beer festival too!
Only catch - it's a private club, but it's just
a quid for day membership and well worth it."
Meanwhile
self-styled Southern Sophisticate Alex Pearson
(revealing a hitherto unsuspected Watford capacity
for irony) tells us:
“If
you are coming up from London, I would recommend
you taking the Euston train to Bushey station which
is one step before the High Street. There is a ‘proper’ Irish
boozer across the road which sells Dublin Guinness.
This is fantastic but unfortunately the ales are
Greene King. I know you don't like Greene King.
[Whatever gave him that idea?] If you turn left
out of the station, cross the road and take the
next left you come to a cornerhouse called the
Villiers. It's a country pub in
a town setting with superbly kept Young’s
ales. It's a peach and you are far enough out of
town that no one
will care about colours or what not. If you ask
they'll direct you to the ground – it's about
15 to 20 minutes' walk.”
Alex
also observes:
”I quite like your view of
life in the ‘Jewel of the M25’. It
is a shithole, but it's our shithole and I love
it.”
Thanks
for those. And so to the ground, which you’ll
find easily by following people in yellow shirts
from the High Street, on a walk which takes you
past some takeaways and a cemetery. If you're struggling
to find the ground, a top tip I picked up from
one of the sites is to follow signs to the Watford
General Hospital, which is next to the ground.
Funny how you often find cemeteries near to hospitals.
On
earlier visits away fans have been housed in a
corner of the Sir Stanley Rous stand down the side
and the newish Rookery End behind one goal. These
days, however, away fans occupy the Vicarage Road
Stand, once a home stand only, behind the other
goal.
Interestingly,
the away end turnstiles are right next to the Red
Lion, on Vicarage Road, which all sources describe
as a home only pub that away fans should stay away
from. As it happens I have been in once, being
determined to leave no stone unturned in my quest
to find decent places to drink in Watford. The
problem with these long walks and cab rides to
the ground is that you can never quite get the
timing right, and on our evening visit in October
1996 we were let down by the cab. It arrived on
time. So we had to try. Dressed straight from work,
we answered the doorman’s enquiry of where
we had come from with, truthfully, the word ‘London’,
and we were in. We were very much in a minority,
and it wasn’t anything to get excited about,
being a typical close to the ground kind of pub.
Can't remember anything about the beer. It is very
much a home fans’ place, despite its proximity
to what is now the away end, which is bound to
cause a few misunderstandings. Anyway, I understand
that it now admits Watford season ticket holders
only, so best forget it. There is a designated
away supporters' pub nearby, called Macs. It will,
of course, be shit.
At
least they don’t make you walk around the
allotments any more. I think this may be a major
reason for my low opinion of Watford. That day,
we arrived at the ground in good time, just the
other side of the pitch from the away end. We blithely
followed the signs to the away end, assuming they
would send us to the opposite side of the ground.
But they didn’t. They sent us down, along,
further along, further down, past a load of allotments
and to the bottom of a hill, away from the ground.
As we walked through an industrial estate, we looked
up the hill, and saw the ground, in the distance.
We’d walked for about ten minutes since we
first got to the ground, and now we were about
ten minutes from the ground. All that remained
was to walk back up the other side of the allotments,
and up the hill, completing in our long ellipse
a journey from one corner to the next that would
normally take a matter of seconds. When we got
to the turnstiles there was a queue. They’d
only opened two. We were not happy.
Thankfully,
those days are over – apparently this ill-managed
fiasco was to allow the construction of the Rookery
Stand – but even on another visit, when thousands
of Clarets turned up to see the emperor Waddle
parade his gleaming clothes on a scorching day,
I seem to recall the police sending us on some
absurdly circular route from the ground that involved
climbing every available hill in the stifling heat.
Then there was the time the match was rained off,
when we were treated to loud, jolly and instant
declarations that there would be 'no cash refunds',
a statement they couldn't make fast enough. Yep,
it's the sort of place where you really feel welcome.
Once
inside, the ground’s not bad, with the two
ends quite new, the Rous Stand vaguely continental
and only the other side’s collection of small
sheds letting the place down. All is garish yellow
and red, to the extent that you can’t help
wishing they played in black and white. Note that
rows with double alphabetical letters (AA, BB,
etc) are at the front of the stand and not the
back, which caused some confusion. As we found
when hanging around for the postponed match, front
rows aren't particularly covered by the roof.
Refreshments
at the ground are not good and in any case are
rather hard to obtain, with there being little
room to manoeuvre under the stand.
For
things to do in Watford if you're not drinking
- bloody hell - visit the Watford
council website.
Unfortunately the exhibition on Graham Taylor at
the Watford Museum
will have finished by now. Wonder if the gift Burnley
presented to him when he "retired" from
football is in there? Extensive research has thrown
up absolutely nothing else of interest about Watford.
Fittingly, it seems its purpose was always as a
junction, the settlement apparently having been
founded due to its proximity to the Roman proto-motorway
Watling Street and a river.
The
best Watford website is Blind,
Stupid and Desperate.
This is a fine site, spoilt only by a tendency
to characterise Burnley supporters
as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. Ah well, fuck ‘em.
If
the above listing hasn’t grabbed you – and
why should it? – and you seek something more,
I would suggest going to St Albans, a few miles
north east. St Albans is the inverse of Watford.
It's everything Watford isn’t, being a pleasant
town with some attractive scenery, a fine cathedral
and real history - and, importantly for our purposes,
some excellent and diverse pubs. Trains run erratically
between Watford Junction and St Albans Abbey station,
and sometimes they don’t take longer than
about fifteen minutes. Do however note that the ‘Abbey
Flyer’ as it calls itself often seems to
be kyboshed by engineering work, so if you fancy
the following, do check first.
Pubs
I've been in recently in St Albans include the
Farmers Boy on London Road, close to the other
St Albans station (St Albans City), which brews
its own beer, although I'm not sure if I think
the pub's that great; the Farriers Arms, a decent
McMullen's local on the quiet Lower Dagnall Street;
the Mermaid, a good, standard sort of pub on Hatfield
Road, again not too far from City station, with
beer from Everards, amongst others; the White
Hart Tap on Keyfield Terrace, which was packed out with
locals drinking Adnams on a Saturday night, but
where I fortunately missed the tribute band Deaf
Shepherd; and the White Lion, a quiet relaxed sort
of place on Sopwell Lane, where again you'll get
Adnams but may be unlucky enough to catch dreadful
squawking blues music.
I'm
bound to say, though, that for my money the best
St Albans pub is the Lower Red Lion on Fishpool
Street, a lovely old inn on a very attractive street.
The welcome is friendly and the beer at this free
house is good, with several excellent guest beers.
It is at this point that I should admit that the
Lower Red Lion is run by Alan Dean, a member of
the London Clarets, but even if it wasn't, it would
still be an excellent pub! What more could you
honestly ask for? They also offer accommodation,
should you be tempted to miss your train home.
Lord
knows, I'm not one for franchising, but if one
day they moved the club from Watford to St Albans
I might be persuadable. Honestly, even Luton is
better. Do we have to keep coming here?
Firmo
With thanks to Chris Stride and Alex Pearson
Last visited March 2003
Last updated September 2003
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