A return to the famous Lancashire town of Wigan for the first time since I visited the town's beer festival in that strange period when Covid cases were increasing and rumours of an impending lockdown started to swirl around. And so with no festival on this time (or so I thought) my plan was to take in a number of pubs in the town centre that I'd not visited last time.... Last time I visited Wigan I had introduced the town as follows: "Home of the so-called Pie-Eaters. Home of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. The location of the former Empress Ballroom, which in the 1970's morphed into Wigan Casino, the spiritual home of Northern Soul. A town whose famous people include George Formby, Stuart Maconie, Andy Gregory, Kay Burley, and Georgie Fame. A traditional rugby league town. A former mining and mill town. The inspiration for George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, in which he highlighted the poor living conditions of Britain's working class. A historic town, with m
A football-away-trip-cum-stag-do taking in two different towns. First up we headed east to the market town and port of Boston for the football, followed by an evening and a stopover in the historic market town of Newark-on-Trent in the middle of Nottinghamshire. Here's what happened.... I was picked up around 8.45 last Saturday morning, and after a hearty breakfast and catch up with the other lads at the Shay Cafe, which nestles in the shadow of the Shay Stadium home of FC Halifax Town, we set off in two cars on our journey to the far-flung south-eastern corner of Lincolnshire. We were on our way to Boston, where the local team were back in the National League after several seasons in the league below. I had been here for football once before, but it was not on the last occasion the teams had met one level below in the National League North when Town triumphed 4-1 in their promotion-winning season of 2016-17. I checked back and my last visit had been in 2011, when the sides had sha