Category: Preston

Preston Venue 33 – Sam’s Bar

Eleven miles south of Preston on the Manchester rail line lies the town of Chorley. The train passes through Leyland and the new station of Buckshaw Parkway prior to its arrival. I have always had a soft spot for Chorley and had numerous forays out there in my youth.

Prior to the extension of the licencing laws, we would arrive there at 7pm on a Friday evening, a sally round the town would follow before a 10pm train back into Preston, flier in the Olde Black Bull before jumping on the last bus at 11pm, sometimes via Zagros for a cheeky pizza!

When I was 18 in 1986, PNE seem to regularly play on Friday nights necessitating the requirement of a transistor radio whilst walking back to the station to check the result on Radio 2’s 9.55pm sports bulletin.

Remarkably, the following year, non-league Chorley beat the once mighty Wolves in a FA Cup 1st Round second replay before drawing PNE at home in the 2nd Round. It was a huge game locally and they decided to play at Blackburn’s Ewood Park ground, which much to our amusement produced the biggest crowd in years at the stadium and the home team weren’t even playing! Also, it was memorably where Uncle George got stuck in a yellow box at a junction and was summarily rollicked by the local polis when driving back from the match in his yellow Vauxhall Cavalier, with us buffoons chortling unhelpfully on the back seat of the motor! The match was drawn, and we won the replay.  

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The Chorley heroes of 1987. Image Credit Daily Mail – PA Reporter

34 years on, in 2021, Chorley surpassed that achievement by reaching the 4th round and bizarrely ran into Wolves again, now a Premier league side and lost narrowly. The crying shame was that due to the pandemic there were no crowds, denying them the opportunity of a rocking Victory Park that evening!

So, on arrival at Chorley train station back in the 80’s you could initially backpedal to the real ale house Malt and Hops (wrong side of the tracks?!) before heading back and taking a circular route around the town centre. This would take you past the Queens down to the main drag where Yates Wine Lodge resided.

Yates was a strange establishment in those days with a pool table located in virtually the centre of the pub. I was a decent player then so used to put my 10p down and take my chances, but it felt a little like a Wild West viewing audience around you when you were participating!

A right turn then took you to the Swan with Two Necks which was down in a dip next to the main road. I recall staying at a mate’s house on a balmy summer’s night and the last port of call was the pub’s large beer garden. Before we departed, I nipped to the loo, and much to my horror while I was in lavatory somebody had locked the door. Door banging and hollering ensued with visions forming of me camping down there for the night before thankfully after a tortuous five minutes the door was unlocked. I informed them politely (not!) that it might be beneficial in future to check the area before turning the key.

A return route past a Walkers brewery pub near the market, I cannot recall the name, took you to the hostelry which was opposite the station. This was known at one point as the Weird Arms and used to be a Burtonwood brewery establishment, so a pint of Top Hat was always the beer of choice before the train journey home.  

I had not been out in Chorley for nigh on 20 years before we convened a lads Christmas gathering on 20/12/19. Understandably the place looked different with a suite of new ale bars near the station, one we visited was called the Gallery. As we were being served, there was a creak preceding the total collapse of the shelf behind the bar containing all the spirit bottles which landed in an almighty thud with splintered glass everywhere. We returned there again in Christmas 2021 where an errant child came perilously close to toppling a huge Christmas Tree, an accident book might be a worthy present next year!

Another venue near the station was Sam’s Bar where on the 2019 outing we encountered a terrific noisy energetic punk/new wave/ska covers band called The Stories. The band are Chorley residents so unsurprisingly they played in front of a large boisterous crowd.

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Sam’s Bar. Image Credit fleurets.com

You may justifiably ask why Chorley is classed under the banner of Preston venues, the answer would be that the town has a Preston postcode, so I am applying the same principle of Salford venues with Manchester postcodes.

Preston Venue 32 – Plungington Hotel

Picture the scene if you will, midnight on a sweltering summers evening in 1985, two scrawny callow 17-year-olds on Lytham Road in Preston are throwing a tennis ball over a railway bridge, known locally as the danger bridge. When the ball did not reach its intended destination, the thrower would scramble up the hill to retrieve it, the issue being that this was the West Coast main line, the saviour being that the electrified third rail had not yet been introduced at this stage.

The punters in question were myself and a chap called John Monk who I knew from school and the reason for this activity was due to a skinful of ale supped at the nearby Plungington Hotel pub. I guess this hazardous game could be quantified in equal parts invincibility of youth and crass stupidity.

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The Danger Bridge! Image Credit www.blogpreston.co.uk

I recall on another night John and I undertaking another outing through the disused Miley tunnel which was part of the original Preston to Longridge route before the muppet Beeching culled all the lines in the 60’s. It ran from the Adelphi roundabout to Deepdale Road and walking through it most definitely not reminiscent of a scene from the Railway Children movie! There has been talk for years of building a tram network which would utilise that line, but methinks the proof will be in the pudding there.

As you progressed away from the Danger Bridge towards the pub, on the left for many years was Preston football legend Tom Finney’s plumbing firm which he ran for many years after his retirement in 1960. On the right is St Cuthbert’s church where I used to attend bonfire nights with treacle toffee and parched peas on sale. I also recall Jumble Sales there where I used to hunt down rare Roy of the Rovers comics.

At the next junction with Brook Street there was located for many years a sweet shop that I used to frequent when walking up to watch the match. It was a proper old-fashioned place where they would have scales to weigh the toffees and place them in the requisite white bags. You could purchase in 2oz portions, and my regular choices were chewing nuts, toffee bonbons (white ones) and midget (mini) gems though I was also sometimes partial to Blackcurrant and Liquorice, Rhubarb and Custard, Chocolate Eclairs and Pear Drops.

Beyond there you reach the roundabout and the intersection with Blackbull Lane and Plungington Road where the pub resides. On the far side of the roundabout is a bus stop where Dave Keane and I would catch buses back in the 80’s.

For a spell around then there were bus wars in Preston and one of the firms operating were Zippy buses and their chief selling point was that they would stop anywhere and operated some non-standard routes. This assisted us greatly as we had undertaken a mission at that stage to try and have a drink in every Preston pub. We achieved about 90% coverage but fell short on some of the outermost pubs as there was no public transport option and taxis were unfeasible due to our paltry finances!

The Plungy for many years was a traditional Matthew Brown brewery pub and is split into a lounge and a games room with pool table and two dart boards and has remained relatively unchanged. Outside there is a bowling green where Crown Green bowls are played, I had the privilege of playing on there once, the only time I have played the deceptively challenging game. There are viewing areas around the green and it is a proper sun trap area.

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The Plungington Hotel. Image Credit blogspot.com

The Keane family clan who live nearby have been attending the pub for a Christmas Day dinner time drink for nigh on 40 years but 2020 put paid to that unbroken run, as it did to many other traditions and plans.

The establishment went through an extensive doldrums period and drugs issues prior to two brothers taking over the lease in 2009 and regenerating it. They spruced up the real ale choice, organised an annual gin festival which encompassed the bowling green area and introduced live bands. We visited on Easter Sunday 2010, and the place was jacked for the first time in decades and a noisy Preston indie covers band called Sydney Gumboots were playing in the lounge area.   

Around that time, they also used to have a decent jukebox where somewhat astonishingly I could find the Mogwai ‘Hunted by a Freak’ track so naturally I used to ensure that it received regular airplay much to the bemusement of the regulars!