retiredmartin

11th January 2023.

Just back from a rather more convincing City performance than a week ago, when Southampton played us off the park (not for the first time).

Never mind. Just as you don’t go to a pub to drink beer, you don’t go the the football to enjoy football. Or something.

The highlight is the singing, and the abuse of Southerners, and the walk at the end of the game along the waterfront up to St Denys Station.

And St Denys means the South Western, a former National Pub of the Year finalist,

a pub you see from the train and think “Wonder what it’s like now ?”.

Wonder no longer.

It’s gone all “beers you’ve heard of“, leaving the rare stuff to those pesky micros.

You can guess my views on that. The Old Rosie is a bargain, but I follow the crowd with A Swift One, appropriately as I only have 7 minutes before the train back to the Airport Premier Inn.

It takes me longer to choose a seat than to drink it.

No, not there. Or here.

Or upstairs.

This’ll do. And the Bowman will do, too; cool and tasty (NBSS 3).

But it’s far too quiet. I’d popped in here after games before and found it packed half an hour after the game. Perhaps I’ve just walked here too fast, perhaps it’s a sad time of the times, and it’ll need the upcoming Meat Draw to drag them in.

Still, a lovely pub, with classic artwork.

And the Saints fans who did make it provided a level of analysis of the match that Lineker and Shearer could only dream of. “That were ******* good, wan’t it ?“.