4. Marston and Headington,
This crawl occurred after a fateful two
games of football on one day. After initially playing MCR football with KO at
10.30am [and having had several post-match shandies],
I met up with Mr. D. Wacey for a spot of lunch and a
pint at the Jack Russell in Marston. After cycling
back to St. Peter’s College Sports Ground, we played for Geolsoc
in an epic 5-5 draw against Brookes’ Geolsoc. We felt
that we needed rewarding with a couple of pints!
The first port of call was the
Dispensing of Cook, Wacey
and myself pressed on in a northerly direction to the
Friar. This pub was quite old fashioned and had two bar areas. We elected to
visit the Old Boys area. On leaving this pub, we expected a long trek to Headington, but were pleasantly surprised at the appearance
of the Cavalier on the Northway estate as a chance to refresh ourselves.
Although the beer and decor wasn't up to much, BN pork scratchings
were available, and they were playing the Fox FM '80s night over the PA system.
A long cycle up a hill followed, but we
were rewarded with the Black Boy in Old Headington,
where many well kept real ales were available, and at
the quiet time that we went, some wonderful Old Duffers' arm chairs could be
nabbed. A fine pub, although the lack of punters was a shame.
Reaching the main part of Headington, we tossed a coin to see which pub to visit. I
lost the toss and had to order halves in the Britannia, a horrible
establishment. The adjacent Royal Standard was a lot better, though had a bit
of a food pub feel to it and general Morrells
paraphernalia scattered around. A quick pissed razz on shit bikes down Headington Hill put the wind in our hair and livened us up
for the next leg, involving a swift half at another Morrells
boozer, the Plasterer's Arms, a reasonable if uninspiring establishment.
Following poor quality nourishment at a nearby kebab shop, we tried the Duke,
and although the beer and surroundings were not particularly to our linking (poncey and full of arts students) there were at least a
couple of ladies behind the bar.
Mr. Wacey at
this point had to go elsewhere, but I decided to meet up quickly with Nick
Gardiner and Rob Simpson for a swift beer or two at the James Street Tavern
which I could not be arsed to rate again.
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
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