Cricket News From Shardlow

You left me reminiscing after a trip down memory lane to Olton but time moves on as the big news of the day will confirm.

Bearing in mind this is a politics free zone then I am of course referring to the news that Olly Stone is making his England test debut against Ireland tomorrow.

This of course could mean an all Bears pace attack alongside Chris Woakes for the first time since…….I’m not sure but I suppose Bob Willis and Chris Old (although Old was at Yorkshire at the time) sort of count in 1981 against the Aussies.

I expect Neil, Mudgie or Duncan will know the answer and I rate Stone so I hope he has a better time than the last time I blogged about the Bears here.

I should be able to watch it on the TV too now that Mrs BB has finally relinquished the remote control following the end of Love Island.

Obviously, this is a family blog (someone let Russ know) so I try and keep it clean but I don’t think a pub in Whitwick would have enough expletives to describe my thoughts on it.

Is this really top class TV? Are people really famous for basically doing nothing apart from looking at nubile young men and women?

At least when Robin Askwith did it in the seventies there was some humour involved!

Anyway, I digress and with Chris lamenting the lack of decent boozers in Chelllaston on the Twittersphere recently then it reminded me that another Derby suburb, Shardlow, isn’t a million miles away.

I’ve been here before and explored a variety of boozers in this well pubbed area which carries on into Sawley and Long Eaton as you can see on the map.

There are boozers aplenty in this neck of the woods although that does mean competition is fierce and pubs have to try and work hard to get punters through the door.

Take 438 – The Navigation Inn DE72 2HA for example.  As well as a weekly quiz, they are going down the musical route with a band called Dirty Ruby playing on a Saturday night, although their near neighbours, Smithy’s Marina Bar also do the same.

It’s smart enough and I reckon there was some kind of party going on when I popped in on Saturday afternoon.  I say that as there was a raft of kids playing in the beer garden, a few women with panted on dresses and wedge heels on as well as some blokes in shoes and shirts.

There was also a woman with an I-pad inside who I presume was in charge of the tunes as she was walking around canvassing opinion and thumping dance appeared to be order of the day.

It was smart enough and the music was dominating most of the atmosphere but there people in not at the party too having a drink.

I went for the Burton Bitter Saddle Tank and, for whatever reason it was pretty poor.  Not undrinkable but I was tempted to ‘do a Martin’ and look for a plant pot.

They’ve got Sky Sports, Music, it is clean and tidy, well-kept and a good sized beer garden.

However, on this occasion my pint was average, which did mean I could make a sharpish escape with only a sip and I could stop in at 34 – The John Thompson Inn DE73 7HW to see how it was shaping up.

This was one of the earliest boozers I blogged on and it is tucked away off he A514 in the tiny hamlet of Ingleby.

It’s as it was a sprawling countryside boozer with food, log cabins in the grounds and right next to the River Trent.

(proper pub driveway – sign in distance!)

It was piping hot so I stuck with the keg (Banks’s) Amber Ale although you can still get a pint of JT or JT Gold.

England were playing Sweden and a feller in his sixties was explaining the VAR system to his wife and mother in law after Ellen White had another goal chalked off.

It was classic pub fare and by the time the explanations and the possibilities had finished it was almost half time and comedy gold.

I like the JT and it is one of the great survivors as there are minimal chimney pots nearby.  There’s plenty to potentially like about The Navigation too, but it is in a congested market so will need to survive any way it can.

Neither pub was showing Love Island, which is a positive and the Navigation can at least show Stone taking his first test wickets tomorrow…