Why Pubs Are A Football Fan's Best Friend

football has always been the

released valve for a lot of people it's

you know their escape from the regular

nine to five or whatever their working

pattern is it's where they go for

90 minutes to forget about the world and

the pub

is the very beginning of that journey

the two are just inextricably linked to

me i mean i had one of the best nights

of my life on licensed crisis

when berry got promoted in 2011.

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the club said on twitter we're all going

back to the social club all the players

and around six hundred pounds and for

the next few hours

we drank together we sang together and

it remains one of the greatest nights of

my life

i remember hugging every single player

as they walked in it was just incredible

it was like nothing i'd ever experienced

before

the english football pub it's linked to

the whole match day experience

a good friend of mine once said a good

day out sport by 90 minutes of football

and never a true

thing said so it's about meeting your

mates

having a few points predicting what's

going to happen you know your hopes your

fears etc

most original football grounds were

built in the heart of the community

of what they were aiming to represent

near to where the pubs were originally

anyway

these buildings are part of the

fragrance area

every person would probably use the same

pub so they would be

emotionally attached to that pub as well

every football club would have had a

local pub that was associated to it

we're all going to that same place

you're going to what you could call your

holy place it was that sense of

belonging

that sense of being part of something

it's all levels of life and you can have

a bin man and a prince talking about

football and they'll both be on the same

page you know each will respect the

others opinion because

football is that universal thing

there's a community feel to it that

everyone is there for the same reason

people say about football you've known

these guys for 20 years but you don't

know their first name

and you just know them as by

characteristics everyone sees each other

in the booze and it comes

like a little community no matter how

crap they are

you're not looking for anything other

than just pints and atmosphere

the tables are sticky the bars sticky

there's beer all over the floor

you know you're just rubbing shoulders

with people that you don't know

if you sense that atmosphere you sense

that everyone's there for the same cause

you're all getting involved in that

kindred spirit

of supporting your team wanting your

team to win the next best thing

to not going to a football game is going

to the pub and sat with

a hundred plus strangers that you don't

know and being part of that same cause i

said that same atmosphere you know

you're all there

to watch your team when you end up

hugging and kissing strangers that you

don't even know just because someone

scored a goal you get that euphoria

england played sweden in the world cup

in 2018 and we went in our local pub

we all piled into this this pitch black

pub with no lights on just the glare of

the telly's really

and the sun beaming in from the outside

and then england scored

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there was people on the tables those

tables actually falling over there was

bears

throwing uh glasses smashed there was

actually bear dripping down from the

ceiling

i was about a chair people had shirts

off swinging around the head

so my mates cried in hugging each other

outside after the game after we'd won

it was one of the greatest moments i've

ever experienced not even just in

football just in life in general

i wouldn't think of going anywhere else

when i was going a match that was always

the place i'd end up

for me the local pub the local team gave

an escape

from the ground of the working week when

you used to turn up at the ground on

their way around you that's the first

question

where's the nearest pub if there was a

steward or somebody around because

there's a tribal nature to football

and you'd all go in your colours and you

chant your team songs

it was great to see in a way pulled for

your own fans

all wearing the colours and feeling all

part of one big family

most matches players came in in those

days and you could mix with them and

that doesn't happen now but i remember

in 1984 sitting with our goalkeeper and

consoling him when we'd

just missed out on promotion on the last

day he was holding back the tears and i

suppose i'm still holding back mine but

it was

an emotional time

for me when i was walking to the ground

i could always pass

three pubs sadly there's only one left

now

one blew up and the other one's

converting to flats

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uh

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the death of the english pub around

football grounds actually started

quite a long time ago although west ham

moved from their traditional grounds up

to part the bowling ground to the london

stadium

probably five six even ten years before

that

one by one the pubs that we were used to

as we grew

up changed and the problem is

you can't just sustain a pub for once

every two weeks in the football season

they've got to serve the local community

and the local community in the east end

just don't think queen

pubs anymore as a local person

it's heartbreaking at times to see an

area that i grew up in and loved even

though it was a tough area

change but that is the way the east end

the east end's always been transient

as a population we've always been a part

of london of immigration

where 25 of noon were born outside of

newark in the 1970s i think we're at 85

now people are loyal to a pub so

if you live in an area you would

generally drink in one pub

west ham moved into an area that was

industrial wasteland

there's no pub as such like traditional

pub

probably within a 10-15 minute walk of

the london stadium

if you take the west ham fans that are

upset over the moon

a lot of it is the loss of the

traditional aspect of debate

so the fact that near to the ground it's

mainly bars

that charge you know five six pound a

pint

rather than the pubs we were drinking

that were charging 350 a point

the london stadium move to show

the modern premier league football as is

and it sort of sums it up that the

london stadium

is premier league upton park is

the old football league community

football as such

and that west ham is now distant from

the community

when i was a kid there was 15 pubs i

could think of within walking distance

of west ham

when we left in 2015 we were probably

down to five

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i think we found it all very surreal

when kobe hit and they just think of the

football thing that

that was when we realized that it was

going to have a big impact on our lives

it was going to have a big impact on the

pub

we found ourselves a really difficult

situation where the governments are

advising people not to go to pubs

but yet we still have to be able to make

a living the night we were finally told

to close i did get quite cheerful in the

evening because

no one knew it was happening you know

when you're gonna see your family again

when you're gonna see your friends again

we've seen this a lot with the

coronavirus pandemic there's so many

people out there and i probably include

myself in this if

you don't realise how much of an

escapism that is for some people

there's a certain group of people that

need

english pubs and english pop culture

because it's what gets them through life

there were times that i realized i

wasn't missing the football i was

missing the community

and i was missing my friends i'll

regular

once every two weeks sit down and chat

and see what's going on in each other's

lives

you know one of my friends was going

through a messy divorce last year

we've not been able to be there and

support him i was missing

everything about being part of something

that's bigger than i am

there's been a large disconnect with me

when i haven't been able to go to the

pub and watch the football with federal

fans

what instead just watching it at home i

think a lot of people suffered

with mental health not being able to

have that escapism or meeting up with

people they might be

might just be sat at home it's kind of

took its toll on me as a football fan

because

i've not been able to enjoy the game as

much without having that kind of

institution that has that connection

it's like you've grown up

playing football watching football go on

the matches then eventually when you're

old enough go at the pubs and kind of

watching

football multiple times a week on the

telly in the pubs with your mates

and did that be taken away from you in

an instant and not being able to access

that

it's just a big part of your life it's

like losing a bit of your soul

essentially

what i want more than anything when this

whole wretched affair comes to an end

is to just sit in a pub and read the

paper and have two pints and a bag of

crisps

that is such a simple pleasurable it's

all i want at the moment

just that being able to feel the

atmosphere of a place just from sitting

in it and not knowing what might happen

in there every trip to the pub now we

avoid discovery

so i'll be just nice to go and say

you know not seeing you for a bit those

things catching up

just catching up with your football

mates and looking forward to

you know what's in front of us what what

the season holds for us

whether we're home or away uh i know

we'll meet up with those people

god willing and you know we can chew the

fat again

the thing i missed to really pinpoint it

is 15 minutes before kickoff when you've

got to think your point as quickly as

possible

and you walk towards the stadium it's

like you're walking

like arm and a half of hundreds of

people all doing the same thing

and you just get it's just like right

i'm ready for this two hours ago

is like 10 minutes

it's it's such a beautiful feeling

you genuinely wonder if groaning virus

means that the same people won't be

there will people not want to go to

football will people not want to be in a

pack pub

how many people do you hear all the time

say we will never get back to normal

with that it

is an absolute institution football pubs

it's many of them won't survive which

would be heartbreaking but

the first thing you'll do when you're

going to your team won't we go

straight into the stadium you'll go into

that pub and there'll be this

collective feeling of just absolute

jubilation that we've

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defeated

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people need that and they'll always be

part of football it's complete escapism

for everyone

that is just as big as part as going to

the matches that phrase of

just working during the week spend your

money on football and then go back to

work

that's britain for so many people and

it's it's brilliant it's amazing

you