BRAPA - South Anston (Loyal Trooper)

It was deja vu from my previous train journey to Kiveton Park (Harthill on 17th May), just missing the train connection in Sheffield by seconds so forced to wait twenty minutes whilst disconsolately munching on a bag of Mini Cheddars on platform 3B until the next train arrived.

Once in Kiveton Park, I played one of my favourite BRAPA games "Beat the Bus" where I tried to speed walk to South Anston before the bus would have arrived.  And I won!  Despite standing on a half full can of Vimto.  Yasss!

Nearly there .... and still no sign of the X5 bus

I'm going in!  Take that bus-face!

986.  Loyal Trooper, South Anston

I squashed in at the right hand bar between three friendly local men with an air of the "what of it" about them.  Pete's wife had put his pork chop in the oven two hours ago, he wondered if it'd be done yet.  "Very crispy" was the general consensus.  No sooner had I taken my Abbeydale Moonshine to the rare example of bench seating near the front door, when another man plonked a "reserved" sign on my table.  He told me not to worry, but an 80 year old blind man was coming for tea here at 19:30 and finding his way into the pub was a struggle, so they always put him at the table nearest the door.  Okay then, I had an hour.  More than enough, tempting as it was to stay the full hour and risk being groped by an old blind man.  In typical South Yorkshire village pub style, the pub then took on a huge influx of people between 18:30-18:45 and a cackling group of women were first to appear and ask why it was so quiet.  "Well, this is South Anston on a Tuesday evening girls, not Dodgy Doncaster DJ Disco Dave's Saturday Northern Soul Explosion"  (I didn't say that).   A bit of a rumpus followed as 4 men in identical Carling t-shirts appeared and asked a local if they could have a photo outside the pub, and commented they should really be drinking Carling but they'd "brave the ale!"  Who were they?  Was this a shit version of BRAPA?  Go round all the Carling pubs in the UK?  Back at the bar, I topped up with half a Moonshine to get me through to 19:05 and one of the Carling gang turned his nose up at me, slagged off pale ales (hoppy and samey), but he was on the Adnams Southwold like a brave little soldier.  I was just about to ask him about the Carling tops, when he disappeared into a crack in the floor, or so it seemed.

Moonshine in John Smith's glass on Carling beer mat on reserved table,  Hmm.

I'm a loyal trooper.

Quite a nice historical pub it was, I'll turn a blind eye to the restauranty area out the back, and the Carling/Doom Bar/potential Sky Sports conglomerate, and the beer in wrong glass. It had a great atmosphere, friendly staff, great locals, and if you found it in North London, it'd be like finding the Bell at Aldworth.  

I'd enjoyed the "Beat the Bus" game so much, I walked back to Kiveton Bridge too.  I let it win this time.  Only just over a mile so a short march, tiny bit hilly but the GBG should be encouraging people to do walks like this.  People are so lazy.  Less than 0.5 miles a day they walk, no wonder they are fat,  And the health people have the gall to blame things like drinking too much beer!  Bollocks.

Back in Sheffield, I popped in Sheffield Tap for a very swift  Cascadian Tempest and was served by the Junga/Yunga barmaid from the other week - classic barmaidery.  

In the main bar at Sheff Tap, note the grinning fop who tasted all the beers and then went for Jaipur.

Time for Blackpool's Rebellion Punk Festival!  Am determined to get a Saturday lunchtime crawl somewhere, and of course squeeze in the Auctioneer.  But I won't be too disheartened if I don't get much done.  After all, last year the GBG managed to remove Thornton Cleveleys incredible good Sam Smith's pub (and the good but weird Bispham one) making any BRAPing null and void.  And why does Gillespies never get in, fallen out with CAMRA?  At least Pump & T. is back,  a classic.

Me in the now defunct Casbah stage in 2014.

Me at Victoria Hotel, Thornton Cleveleys last year.

Me at Bispham Hotel last year.

See you next week!  Si