Bargain Booze At The Crown And Arrows

On a day when plucky England battled hard and just failed to avoid the follow on against West Indies it was nice to report some good news.

The West Bromwich Dartmouth CC Indies are just above Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the test rankings so it was always going to be hard to avoid the follow on after they posted a total of 289 and so it proved.

It was a close run thing as to what was the most exciting event today…England’s batting collapse or Mudgie’s dismay on Twitter.

A proper cricket man I caught up on his tweets after various parenting duties and I could sense the smoke coming from his keyboard!  It could be a long tour if the Windies are going to skittle them out for less than 80 runs.

However, the good news was that when I visited a boozer that the late great Alan Winfield would have endorsed, the second days play hadn’t started on the big Sky sports screen.

344 – Crown & Arrows DE24 9JA is a bona fide classic estate style pub in Shelton Lock, a suburb of Derby.  It’s close enough to the A514 to be classed as ‘one of their own’ but this is a pub surrounded by thousands of chimney pots so the scope for trade is good.

Not only that but it has already won the ‘2019 award for Britain’s cheapest pint of IPA’ as Greene King’s IPA was there in all its glory.

Throw into the mix the opportunity to shop at a Tesco wannabee shop next door and the possibilities are endless.

Alan was and always will be the king of visiting and blogging on pubs that never feature on ‘ale trails.’  His no-nonsense style was unique and whilst he took pictures of pub exteriors you would very rarely see one of pub interiors. http://neverendingpubcrawl.blogspot.com/

Now there may be a whole host of reasons for this but some pubs don’t lend themselves to taking pictures as they are lively and this place had a cracking atmosphere for 1.30 on a Thursday afternoon.

I counted 14 people in, all of whom were congregated around the pool table and darts board with Sky Sports on in the background and the conversation was brutal.

Brexit was very much on the agenda and it is safe to say this area of Derby is not backing Theresa’s plan and won’t be jumping on the Vince Cable bandwagon any time soon either…

It was proper no holds barred stuff but, in true pub fashion, no one was too serious for any length of time and a top class old boy British Asian suggested that we ditch the pound and Euro and introduce the Rupee, it’s a winner!”

(Heading for defeat)

Derby’s best boozers always have a good mix and these boys were going for it and I also witnessed the most one-sided pool game I’ve seen for a while where a bloke in grey  flannel tracksuit lost two frames to a much taller bloke in black flannel tracksuit.

Sometimes, you just sit back and observe pub life in all its splendour and this was an absolute classic place and, considering the time of day, full of life.

This was most definitely a Derby pub with a picture of the Ram on a chalkboard and I should imagine any live Sky/BT games in here are well attended.

Another couple came in and positioned themselves round the corner where it was slightly quieter but with karaoke on every Sunday night I reckon this pub has an even bigger local crowd where people will enjoy themselves to the max.

The barmaid gets top marks for calling me petal and sweet pea for the first time this Century whilst serving my pint and I couldn’t turn down IPA at that price.

I asked her if it was always this cheap and she said “no it’s normally £2.60 but we ordered too many barrels and need it drunk.”

She pulled around two pints through, which would suggest I was the first punter of the day to have it and looking over there was a sea of Guinness, Red Stripe (don’t see that too often), Strongbow Dark Fruits and John Smith’s, like all proper pubs should have.

(comedy poster – standard in a good local)

If I’m honest the pint was average at best and I reckon not to many of the locals are drinking it, if they have too much of the stuff in the cellar.

But that won’t detract from what is a classic suburban estate pub and with more punters in on a Thursday afternoon than I counted in three pubs in Little Eaton on a Wednesday evening a couple of months ago, it looks set to continue serving for a good while yet.