21.
Haydon's Road and Collier's Wood [again],
Exactly one year to the day after doing
this crawl, myself and Richard Bradshaw attempted to
recreate the experience, aided this time by Matthew Oliver. Earlier in the
afternoon though, I had been with my dad to see Croydon
Municipal Officers' FC lose 2-1 at home to Netherne
FC and I had a swift can of John Smiths in their rather plush bar. Then we
nipped to Tooting and Mitcham United FC to catch the
last few minutes of their home defeat to Corinthian Casuals and downed a swift
John Smiths in their bar, though this was a horribly stripey
and breeze-blocked affair.
After leaving home, we went to Haydon's Road by train and as last time our first
establishment was Bar China which had pleasant enough lager although no bitter
in any form. The next stop was the Horse and Groom on Haydon's
Road which had an incredibly dappy French woman
behind the bar who had to be told our order 4 times. The Whitbread Best was
dire - I should have opted for the Boddies or Flowers
IPA on pissflow. There was however an interesting
self service carousel of self-service bar snacks. The last pub on Haydon's Road is the Marquis of Lorne which has been
renovated a bit since last time and is a bit less gay. Keg John Smiths was the
order of the day here.
The first pub which did hand-pumped ales
was the Sultan on the corner of Norman and Deburgh
Roads. It's quite a nice place doing Hopback products
(Entire Stout, GFB, Summer Lightning and some seasonal thing), though our lager
drinkers were not that impressed. Quite good bar snacks though the atmosphere
was a little sedated. Working our way through to GJ's
which I couldn't remember last time ... and with good reason as it wasn't that
good, sparsely populated with poncey sorts and only
keg beer available. The nearby Royal Standard was a more cosy local's boozer which did modestly priced keg Abbot
served by B-list barmaids.
It all went off in the Victory, the next
pub near Collier's Wood Tube, which was quite a high ceilinged
and slightly soulless feeling place. Yet again keg bitter was the 'best'
choice. A rough pissed middle-aged shit tried to drag some woman round the
other side of the pub with the words 'Get round here you slag' which provoked
some tasty scenes of intervention by other punters. We bottled intervention for
fear of being bottled - in any case we'd just finished our halves. One of last
year's pubs, the morgue-like Royal Six Bells, was boarded up so we popped over
to the plastic Kiss Me Hardy, which at least did a reasonable half of Flowers
IPA. No marks for the toilet though as it was closed
and we were directed upstairs. I for one could not be arsed
with all that sort of nonsense.
Bladders bursting, we hastened to the
Nelson Arms. This was the Richie Rich Xmas Present
round, so we necked a shot of Green Aftershock each
[foregoing keg bitters] and then left. Next stop the Princess Royal; a
horseshoe shaped bar greeted us with Courage Best and Abbot on. Quite good for a quiet pint. Just round the corner is the
long, thin, spartan Trafalgar, an almost exclusively
[old] man's pub, but don't go for a shit there because there's no cubicle in
the gents'. A girl behind the bar served us reasonable halves of Hancock's HB,
London Pride and HSB.
The penultimate watering hole on this trip
was the Kilkenny Tavern where we have before
experienced lock-ins as they normally have bands on Saturdays. A young
(probably underage!) girl behind the bar served us standard keg fayre. Finally we rounded off in the Grove Tavern, a
reasonably good pub, though no Real Ale on. A band was playing here and Richard
requested Sweet Home Chicago which was duly played. Leaving at 1am and
getting the N155 back to Sutton, we hatched our next tour, a visit to Kingston
on 3rd January, which hopefully will be a little more fruitful with regards to
real ales. An N213 will allow late consumption if necessary - three cheers for
Red Ken!
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 2nd January 2003.