Rail, ale and a great day out

It’s 6am on Saturday January 7. Along with the rest of the Tamworth FC Real Ale Crew, I’m heading for Liverpool - via Birmingham.

 “You’re going the wrong way!’ I hear you cry. But wait.....there is method in our madness. The Lambs are, of course, due to play Everton in the third round of the FA Cup. Along with the 8-900 diehard fans, several thousand Tammies who have never/rarely seen the team play before are going to be at Goodison Park - and it seems as if most of them will be on the 7.30am train to Stafford (‘change at Stafford for services to Liverpool Lime Street’ as that nice lady  who does the station announcements has it).

 So the nine-strong RAC have a plan - the 7.09 to Birmingham means we can join the Liverpool train when it leaves New Street, at least guaranteeing us a seat. 

 That proved a wise idea because when it pulled in at Stafford, roughly 300 Tammies, most carrying bottles of Budweiser or cans of Stella, charged into the carriages.

 Now it wasn’t the quietest train journey I’ve ever had, but neither was it the rowdiest - and when we got to Lime Street, our different groups went our different ways. They headed off in search of the nearest Wetherspoon’s while we began a pub crawl which I definitely aim to repeat in the near future.

 The game? Oh, you know what happened. Tamworth played one of the best 90 minutes I’ve ever seen from a Lambs team and were heading for a deserved draw when, as a Villa fan I know put it, Everton’s Royston Drenthe hit the ground ‘just as you’re taught to fall over for a penalty when you’re on £30k a week’.

 Enough of that, then. The club banked a handy six-figure cheque and the town got a weekend of great publicity. 

 So back to the pub crawl. After breakfast and a rather wind-battered stroll around Albert Docks, we were off to Dale Street, the middle of the city’s business district and, it seems, home to some of its’ finest pubs. At 11.01, we were in the Ship and Mitre - 13 handpulls, separate pumps for foreign beers and four, yes, four floor-to-ceiling fridges full of continental bottled beers.

 We could have stayed all afternoon and one day, I will - but a stone’s throw down the road was the Vernon Arms. A proper old street-corner local, it had half-a-dozen real ales including a rum porter from Boggarts Brewery which tasted as if someone had made what is already a distinctive brew and then hurled three shots of rum in the glass. Fantastic.

The pub was also showing live football but as the American corporate giant which holds the TV rights to the FA Cup wouldn’t approve, we’ll draw a veil over that.

 Another few steps down the road to Thomas Rigby’s, which had the great advantage of having another pub, the Lady of Mann, in its’ back yard (the two share an outside courtyard and drinkers can stroll out of the back door of one pub and in through the front door of the other - perfect).

 Then, it was round the corner to the Lion Tavern where, as the CAMRA Good Beer Guide rightly notes, the pork pies were as good as the ale. 

 Pre-match prep completed at just after 2pm, our party quickly found three taxis for the £6 journey to Goodison Park - split nine ways, that was amazing value.

 Our cunning plan for after the game involved avoiding the 1805, the last direct train back to Tamworth, or so we thought, leaving the hordes to hurry home while we waited for the 1846 (change at Stafford and Birmingham for Tamworth) and took a bus journey back into the city for the White Star, just up the road from the Cavern Club (Apparently, a famous 60s beat combo have their roots around this part of the city). 

 Rather than music, the White Star deals in boxing and shipping memorabilia and still full of adrenalin, we could have stayed longer - but there was a train to catch and one final pub - the Cains-owned Dr Duncan’s by Lime St station. Finally, we had found a loud and rowdy venue but then, it was early on a Saturday night in Liverpool by now.

 That’s not to denigrate the beer quality, by the way; this was just as good as anywhere else and the nine of us can say we did not have a bad pint all day.

 And to top off the good news, the 1846 unexpectedly stopped at Tamworth, delivering us home just after 8pm. The perfect end to a perfect day - and no-one even felt inclined to argue about refereeing decisions.