May 2024. Sheffield.
Where are we now ? May 27th. Only five more posts and I’m up-to-date and we’ll get back to “Half a dozen pubs in every GBG county” and I know you can’t to see my Argyll picks.
I know I should really be ploughing round the country like BRAPA, ticking the 300-odd pubs in GBG24 I haven’t done, but on Saturday I felt knackered after driving Mrs RM home from Stansted at 1am and stayed local, determined to avoid the Cup Final. If I’m not at a game in person, I don’t want to know the score till it ends.
Mrs RM had never been to the museum at Weston Park,
not only a great building but one of the UK’s best displays of social history material,
focused on industry and injustice and innocent childhood toys.
Mrs RM was far more interested in the gift shop.
After Alfie, Baa Baa and Charlie, we have called our new addition “Dave”.
It’s better than Devoti, anyway.
We brought up the minimum 10,000 steps with a visit to the newly opened and very shiny Cambridge Street Collective, Europe’s biggest “purpose-built” (interesting qualifier) food court, of which more soon if we ever manage to find a seat (Spoiler : rubbish beer choice).
Mrs RM wanted a coffee, I steered her away from Cafe Nero towards the indies of Division Street, where United fans had seemingly taken residence in the least pubby options.
As Simon notes, they just don’t understand pubs.
“What’s the score ?” asks Mrs RM. I don’t know, or care, but passing Bungalow and Bears I hear a cheer so rooted in astonishment it can only be a United goal, and head for Vocation to get away from the screens.
Where I discover City are two (2) down. Definitely time for a beer.
It’s been open a year, but this is Mrs RM’s first visit to Vocation. It’s doing a great trade, lots of women on pints, decent burger trade, great staff.
and the Neon Raptor collaboration “Burton Pale” is good. As with Track, who feel a good comparator, it’s not quite GREAT, but the keg Love and Death definitely IS.
As long as you decant your half into the cask suds of your pint glass, of course.
Within 20 minutes I’d completely forgot about silly football, rather like the City players on the pitch.
retiredmartin 
As a United fan, those seven minutes of injury time were amongst the most nerve wracking I can recall at the end of a football match. I had an awful feeling that I was about to re-experience the trauma of the Alan Sunderland goal that sank us in 1979, only this time scored by someone in a blue shirt.
My City supporting niece watched the match in a Sheffield pub, so, she told me beforehand, she could laugh at all her Red international student mates when they gave us a drubbing.
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I can imagine !
A lot of arrogance has crept into City fanbase (what I see on Blue Moon Forum, anyway). For some anything less than a 3 or 4-0 City win would have been poor. The idea that any time wouldn’t give us a tough game was daft (see also : Milan, Wigan x 3).
I feared a repeat of the times recently United have nicked wins despite being overwhelmed at times, and football only works if you’ve always got a bit of hope. Nice to see a smile on Ten Hag’s face.
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I didn’t know Sheffield has a Weston Park as well as the much more ancient one in Staffordshire.
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Is there no end to Stafford’s treasures ?
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Absolutely not. You should spend more time here.
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I semi-avoided the Cup Final by virtue of living in Scotland where they were showing the Scottish version. So I had to listen to the English final on 5Live and missed the now viral Alan Shearer interview with Ten Hag along the lines of “your team were brilliant today, how come you’ve been so s**t all season?”
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That Alan Shearer used to be rubbish, but now he’s seemingly been given permission to say what any normal person would want to say to these people.
Though if he’d said exactly what you’ve written, Bill, he’d likely have been taken out and shot. Even with the asterisks/bleeps.
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I never watch football on telly as people seem to want to suck the joy that teams like Luton bring to it by constantly finding the negatives.
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No, he didn’t actually say that although he did on Twitter/X
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Isn’t watching football on telly as evil as drinking beer from supermarkets ?
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Sometimes there’s no alternative, Paul. I was only able to get tickets for three Luton games last season, so I watched 12 games at the pub instead. Supporting pubs when I couldn’t support my team.
And when the Hatters weren’t on the telly, I watched non-league games – mostly involving Hallam, my local team in the Northern Counties East Premier League but 10 were just games that I could get to when trains were not on strike or otherwise cancelled.
Most of those trips also included a pub or two, of course.
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Yes, in the ’80s when grounds were half-full at best I think you could equate TV football with home drinking but the boom in popularity of match going across all leagues has changed that.
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I understand SH. What I didn’t understand was my wife’s brothers going to all the home matches and none of the away ones, but then I realised that with not using any pub a cockstride from Molineux they wouldn’t get in any pub near an away ground.
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Elgar used to bike from the Malverns to Molineux. Wonder if he had a couple of pre-match pints in the Posada ?
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Yes, and a couple of post match pints.
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