Dolphin Inn

It was the day that had been christened Black Eye Friday by the media as it is traditionally the day when a lot of people break up from work to start their Christmas holidays, and the early finish and the annual appearance of part time drinkers means that the emergency services are kept particularly busy.

As I walked down Broad St after work I noticed that one of the windows in The Figure of Eight had been smashed, the festive tune 'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas' began going through my head.

Shelley was out on her Christmas do so neighbour Alan and myself had decided to have a Christmas do of our own. We decided to stick to Tamworth and Alan had suggested that we start in The Anchor in Glascote though his review of the place didn't exactly sell his suggestion to me 'It's a bit of a dive but it sells beer' !!

There were two very early major problems about our visit to The Anchor, firstly I had no money, thankfully my mate Coops lent me some 'beer tokens', and secondly there was no pub !! The Anchor tragically has gone the way of so many other British pubs, it has been closed and it is going to be turned into a supermarket. I quickly texted plan B (nearby pub The Dolphin Inn) to Alan who was on route.

The Dolphin is a pub that I'd only been to twice before and both occasions had a fighting theme, the first time was when Alan and I called after watching some very amateur boxing at nearby Glascote Social Club. The second time was when Shelley and I stopped off during a Saturday afternoon session and a couple, who had previously been drinking together quite amicably, decided to have a fight when they left the pub which resulted them both being hauled off in a police car !!

The pub is a bit basic but definitely a proper drinking pub where the only food available is a selection of salty snacks from behind the bar. One disappointment was the selection of beers, there were no real ales, what a great pity particularly as I had to resort to Carling.

Although it was nicely busy there was no indication that it was supposedly the craziest day of the year for drinkers, presumably the predicted mayhem was reserved for the centres of towns and cities.

This was never meant to be a place where we stayed much longer than a couple of drinks but we got settled and ended up stopping for four pints. One of the reasons that we got so comfortable was the quality of the music that was being played. Now I'm a heavy rock man but I appreciate many other genres of music including Northern Soul, and whoever was putting the songs on the pub's jukebox was obviously a Northern Soul fan as that was all we heard for the first hour.

I was almost tempted to sprinkle talcum powder on the floor and move from side to side to dance to Northern Soul classic The Snake by Al Wilson. Who needs Christmas cheese about spacemen that come travelling or cavalry that need stopping when Al's singing about a snake being wrapped up in a curvature of silk?!

I didn't cover myself in glory when I made a much needed trip to the loo, (is a snake comment appropriate at this point?!!) not only did I go completely the wrong way (I could have turned back but I would have had to do the walk of shame past Alan) I also had major difficulties with a door, it didn't matter whether I pushed or pulled it the thing wouldn't open......it was a door that needed sliding to open !!

We decided a pub move was in order so we slithered down to The Winning Post...