retiredmartin

November 2024. Ashford. Kent.

Just back from Rye today; left at 9:48 and arrived in Waterbeach at 12:12, which seems rather quick, though I did deny myself a few pints at the CAMRA Smithfield crawl.

That trip involved a bus, two changes of train, a short delay and a 12 minute walk, the sort of routine journey us Pub Men take in our stride every day and think nothing of it.

Not on Mumsnet, though, where leaving your friend to do a rail journey herself is a hanging offence.

Goodness knows how Mumsnet would cope with the idea of breaking a journey to nip to a sports bar, ALONE, for a quick pint, but that’s what I was able to do in beleaguered Ashford, stripped of its status as a Eurorail stop and with only some recent underpass for consolation.

I don’t mean to be cruel, but Ashford looks more like Glenrothes every fleeting trip, and it seems only appropriate their first new GBG entry in aeons is a sports bar built into a brutalist “leisure” park.

Yes, look for Matches next to the cinema near the art installations.

A dozen screens show rugby (ugh),

two dozen show Forest v Newcastle, with loads of Toon fans settled in for the duration.

It looks the least likely new GBG pub in many a year, and in truth I can’t recall any Guide pubs with as many big screens as Matches. It makes Yates Wine Bar in Swindon look like the Hare & Hounds.

BUT, alongside Untappd check-ins for Brixton and Brooklyn there’s also one for those micro beers from McCanns up the road, and my own Romney Marsh Gold is “good enough”, though it’s the only one pulled.

Will it encourage Kentish Paul to make Ashford a destination for an Old Codgers Pub Crawl ?