The quintessentially English pub overlooks a green. Always. This will be used for cricket, or bowls, or croquet, or dancing around maypoles, or burning heretics, or morris dancing (hopefully not), or jousting or some shit. The pub sign will not be affixed to the pub but hanging from a pylon on the green itself. Nearby will be a pond for dangling ones feet in when cooling off in the summer months. The building will be of a nonsensical layout, with various additions and demolitions over the decades/centuries creating a haphazard layout and, therefore, character.
The Cricketers scores highly for being a classic English pub on this metric. Yet there is so much to deplore.
As I strolled along the lane towards the hostelry I was unsure whether I was approaching a pub or a fucking Wacky Warehouse such were the number of unreproachable screeching little darlings using the benches as an adventure playground.
I was at a family pub.
I realise that these places need to exist, and I don't advocate for them being shut down or anything. I won't bore you by listing the benefits of their continued existence, which are plenty. You're not here for that. You're here for my anger, which in this instance is thoroughly deserved.
The beer garden was a fucking zoo. And the beer garden was 90% of the reason I'd trekked out here. It's south west facing across the green and I was utterly thrilled to see that some families had set up a wicket and were introducing their issue to that most bizarre English tradition of cricket. The thwack of leather on willow was music to my ears. The problem was that most of the little bastards hadn't gone to play cricket, and clearly hadn't had their fucking Ritalin either. Furthermore, the view across the green was utterly ruined by the number of Audi Q7s and BMW X5s, Every inch of available parking space filled with gleaning manifestations of chronically low self esteem.
It's a digression too far even for me to start ranting about the proliferation of soft-roaders, but what I would ask is who the fuck is driving to the pub in London? By quite some margin this is the best connected part of the UK for public transport. I use my car for the big shop and to get out of London. That's it. I can't imagine taking it out on a Saturday afternoon to go to a mediocre pub with good public transport links. These are probably the same people who've been protesting about ULEZ expansion i.e. cunts.
Half of me was tempted to walk on by, but it was a warm day and this pub was fifty percent of the reason I'd come to Epsom. I walked in through the picket fence and miraculously I didn't kick a sugared up sprog in the face! To the bar, which like many of its ilk was understocked with bar towels making it extremely sticky. But I held out hope for a decent pint. Having visited several Stonegate pubs over the years the main one that stuck in my head was The Abbey in Shrewsbury. A big old shell of a place in a residential area, but they'd have some fucking good beers on to be fair. I have fond memories of the Mobberly tap takeover and the Cask Club Monday when I spent an afternoon trying to write an essay on the League of Nations when Titanic Plum Porter was £2.50 a pint. I think I concluded by saying that the League of Nations was a big old pile of wank and shit and you're my best mate and I love you.
I thought this place might also have a decent beer selection too. I was wrong. One was D**mb*r and the two guests were both bitters. Now there is nothing wrong with a pint of bitter, I've enjoyed many. But it's the middle of summer, a warm weekend, the beer garden is packed, and you've chosen to put on exclusively brown beers? Where's your floral golden ale? Your dry hoppy pale? Your straw coloured XPA? Bizarre choices.
However, I think I was the only one to care. The Italian/Spanish style lagers were flying out.
Suspecting that the cask ale hadn't been touched all day and had turned to warm vinegar in the lines I chose a keg lager and scoured the beer garden for a seat. I eventually secured a bench between two large families who obviously assumed that everyone in the vicinity would find their obnoxious offspring as endearing as they do. I put my earphones in. I drank up, enjoyed a bit of sunshine, and I fucked off.
The pub was doing a roaring trade and clearly doing nothing wrong, it just wasn't the right one for me. Best of luck to you. Pubs can't afford to turn away a family of fifteen who are happy with a load of beige over-ready food and soft drinks (which I assume have a much higher mark-up than beer) but it just wasn't the pub that I'd hoped for.
Just down the road was the other half of the reason I was in Epsom - The Jolly Coopers Pub & Brewery. Even if it hadn't been hosting a beer festival it would have made me consider my visit to the Cricketers Inn a complete waste of time.
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