March 2024. Cannock.
Well, I was going to get good value out of my train fare(s) to Cannock, that’s for sure, even if I wasn’t “doing the culture” of cemeteries and Shadow tributes.
But then pubs are culture, aren’t they ?
Bar Sport had just opened and I thought about popping in for the most speculative of pre-emptive ticks, but the folk on their website just looked too happy,
and I doubted they had a barrel of Bass behind the bar.
So I gave in and walked out to the Crystal Fountain,
with the smell of Dominos pizza wafting in the air and the faded signs of NIP-A-KOFS for company.
What are NIP.A.KOFS ? Stafford Paul will know.
I’d been to the Crystal Fountain before, 20 years ago, before what the CAMRA Guide to Heritage Pubs called a decade’s chequered history and a short-lived rejuvenation of Black Country Ales.
And I’ve been wanting to revisit for a while, though I always get it confused in my mind with the Crystal Palace, which is a song by The Bible.
I’m not the only person to make that mistake.
A real back street boozer now, the sort of place Life After Football thrives on, half a dozen blokes under the Union Jack at the bar, Wolves flags on the wall, (unwatched) IPL on the TV.
I can’t see much heritage yet, just a decent boozer, so I take a photo and stick my phone in my top pocket, and turn to order something, anything.
Cask long gone after last Black Country left, but keg M & B Mild sounds a treat.
“Are you filming ?” asks the barman, pointing to the top of my phone.
I really wasn’t, and he seems OK I was just taking a pic of the bench seating. And no-one else takes any notice of me, and why would they ? I fit in perfectly.
I’m glad I came. To be honest, I bet my chilled pint of Mild (£3) is better than a Pig on the Wall shifting 6 pints a day would be, as a Black Country pub with slow moving cask is a very sad thing.
I lingered over the suds, resisted a second pint, and knew I’d have to find an excuse to have a nosey for the heritage rooms I assumed were hidden like in Ma Pardoe’s or the Mountain Daisy.
Luckily, that excuse came with a trip to the Gents, the door to the best room wide open so that CAMRA Heritage Guide obsessives don’t have to ask for the key or something.
Well, it’s quite nice, though the repaint hasn’t done it any favours.
But it’s the lack of happy customers in there that really matters.
retiredmartin 