Another football away trip weekend featuring a first-ever visit to an award-winning CAMRA pub in a Midlands town I had only visited once before. Here's what happened.... It was a cold and grey morning as we waited at Halifax railway station, having first met up for breakfast at the Shay Cafe, just down from the Shay football stadium, home of FC Halifax Town. We were heading to the Midlands to see Town take on Tamworth FC in the televised teatime game in the National League, which had been moved back from the regular 3pm kick-off time due to the demands of the TV schedule. That fairly recent decision hadn't really affected our plans, though; we were stopping over to join one of the lads in celebrating his birthday so the only inconvenience if you could call it that was having to spend up to 4 hours in the pub before the game rather than a more manageable and practical hour and a half. The train took us to Leeds where we had a few minutes to wait for a Cross Country train heading...
A midweek afternoon visit to Manchester taking in some amazing art with a pint or two in one or two of the city's pubs that I don't get too very often.... I was in Manchester the other Wednesday afternoon to catch David Hockney's immersive art show Bigger & Closer (Not Smaller & Far Away) which had been getting some very positive reviews over the previous few weeks. The show was on at Factory International, a new venue to me on the former Granada Studios site on Water Street, off Liverpool Road on the far side of Deansgate. And as a bonus, as with my visit earlier in the month, this gave me another opportunity to try out some of the pubs in a part of the city I don't get to very often. I was running a little late due to a few slight delays on the train over to Manchester. I eventually arrived at Victoria and reckoned that if I got a move on I could fit in a couple of pubs and be able to make it to the 4.30 show that was the time on my ticket. It was a cold grey...