BITE user comments - Cidermaster
Comments by Cidermaster
I used to write on B.I.T.E reasonably regularly, adding my two penneth where and when I felt it necessary. But in recent years I have been living away from Farnborough, where there are actually some decent pubs. Sadly a change of circumstance has led me back to 'the farn' and thus my once vibrant, fun, friendly local. I say once because the plough is truly in shocking decline. Gone are the days of the bar being 4 deep on Friday and Saturday nights with people out for a good time and drinking in a good atmosphere. Now the place is most likely empty on either of those nights, or if there are people in they are the chavvy scum mates of one of the bar staff. Last night for example the bar shut early, there was no warning to those patrons who dont live in locals corner and when this was raised with the bar staff it was not greeted with an apology or a smile, just some terse words and a frank rebuttal. I wouldn't have minded but the bar staff in question was, until a couple of weeks ago at least, charged with getting everyone out of the pub early on a Sunday by hoovering at them and closing off the toilets with fully 90 minutes of opening hours still on the clock.
The much vaunted regeneration of the Farnborough town centre may just prove the undoing of this once fine pub. The promise of over priced, warm, flat characterless drinking in chain gastropubs is surely more appealing than another night of watching your memories get shot down in flames by a maxi-muscle swilling, beer bellied, ex member of her majestys forces' attempts to bring a little Guy Ritchie to northern Hampshire.
Dont get me started on the racist scum that appears to make up one eleventh of the football team either. I cant wait to move away again.
28 Sep 2009 18:01
Sorry consumer1, I was a bit pissed, I was after all in a pub.
14 Aug 2007 16:12
The chavy bar maid was the girlfriend of the ex-barlord who has now moved on to bigger and better things, well, plastering. One of my favourite pubs in Brighton, a dead horse in the road can only add to the character.
14 Aug 2007 16:11
Popped in after a few years away and was pleased to see that despite the mouldy sun bleached curtains making the big trip to the skip and being replaced with some modern wooden blinds that it was still the same excellent boozer as it was when I used to spend upwards of 5 hours a day in here when I should really have been doing some work.
14 Aug 2007 16:09
I have it on good authority that this is a most underisable watering hole. Indeeed the vernacular used likened it to that of the extretory orifice around back being used for copulatory purposes.
14 Aug 2007 15:31
I had a right laugh here on final day in the hurling, meeting an irish mate there for a few beers whilst Cork won. Was totally out of place strolling in and weaving my way to the bar where I was given quizzical looks by the locals for not knowing it was table service. Still everyone took the time to take the p*ss and explain the rules and I had a thoroughly great day as a result.
21 Feb 2006 10:39
Utter dump. It pains me that people still frequent such establishments.
21 Feb 2006 10:27
I abhor this pub from the bottom of my colon. Having been here many times in my formative years, as it was the only place we could get served aged 17, I've seen the bad and the worse in the 15 walls of this place. One hilarious night the toilets overflowed and the gents was under 2 inches of semi-solid faecal matter, nice. Alright for pool if you can get the meatheads off of the tables, and its certainly improved since they stopped the car-E-oh-key.
21 Feb 2006 10:17
Dear oh dear. Some years ago (not quite during the war but about 5 anyway....) this used to be an ace pub, a selection of 52 meat sausages and 10 vegetarian used to pull in the punters from miles around, it had bar billiards, an atmosphere, great beers and everything you could want from a decent pub. I was in here last weekend (5/11/5) and was the only patron other than my girlfriend who I'd been talking this place up to since we met. Sad to say she thinks I'm a habitual lier and is forcing me to sleep in the garden for three months until I can afford to take the pub back over, re-instate the sausage only menu and get some punters back in, I might decorate too, when I was there it seemed someone got bored halfway through the day and gave up. Still the bar man was very friendly although his music taste was shocking.
11 Nov 2005 13:26
This is ridiculous! When I moved to Too-TANG we skiped in here for a couple and decided this would become our local. Went in there the other sunday and were grunted at repeated by the miserable bar staff who couldn't be arsed to serve anyone but their mobile phones. Our food order was got totally wrong, which is surprising being that it took them over an hour to get it ready and then a further 10 minutes for it to travel the 5 metres from the servery to the table. We didn't complian or moan, simply when we ordered dessert (the food was nice despite the wait) we said that it might be nice if all the desserts could come out together and within the hour, the manager then got the right arse, fed us with a load of rubbish excuses that anyone with half a brain cell wouldn't have bothered trying to fob people off with and spent the next hour staring at us in the hope that we'd leave. When the deserts came, they were wrong and not very nice so we did leave, the Mayfair certainly enjoyed our custom for the next 4 hours and did very well out of the jukebox.
3 Nov 2005 14:18
Far from being one for a tit-for-tat arguement I have to say that MAB1 is both factually correct and completely wrong at the same time. The Plough is the best pub in Farnborough, I fully agree, the competition is hardly strong though is it? But you have to admit the clientelle is shocking, there's no atmosphere, everyone is spoiling for a fight and I'm happy to have moved away so I can drink somewhere better. Oh and you can never have too much cider, c'est impossible.
3 Nov 2005 14:09
Truly a staggering boozer of the highest order, I concur with all that jockstrap has written and then some. Be it sun, rain or snow the irish eyes are always smiling in the Mayfair, there marks. A fine pool table, slightly biased to the left, which always favours the right handers, is the centrepiece of this cosy yet spacious little gem. The bar staff are always genial and absolutley love to tell you their drink of choice, particularly if they've been drinking it all day themselves. Best pub in Tooting and the kings head takes some beating.
19 Sep 2005 13:32
Did this place use to be the Cody Tree? I thought the last time it got torched after yet another police raid it was terminal. Used to be great when I was at college, mainly because thye didn't care I was only 17, as long as my mates could be overcharged for a pint in our lunch hour the bar staff didn't care, the locals did though as they couldn't conduct their shady business as openly as normal.
13 Jul 2005 15:18
Fox and Hounds, Church Crookham
Excelent pub, excellent food, excellent beers, excellent location, particularly enjoy going there and reminiscing about throwing my shoes in the canal as a young scamp.
13 Jul 2005 13:17
The Rose and Thistle, Frimley Green
Overpriced but you pay for quality with whats on offer. Its obviously going to be full of pikeys and scummers, its in Frimley Green, home of world darts.
13 Jul 2005 13:11
The Prince of Wales, Farnborough
The best pub in Farnborough by far. Excellent to find a pub which serves home made, good pub food and not microwavable mush out the back of a lorry. Always lets itself down with the disgusting cider but a haven for the real ale drinker, just once I'd like to go in and find a guest cider on, it'd make my life. A high point to visit here any time I happen to find myself back in sunny Farnborough.
13 Jul 2005 13:09
The Thatched Cottage, Farnborough
Your paying for quality with a �4 steak, I bet is was succulent, tasty and melted in your mouth after a day under the hot lamps. I like this pub and have been in many times, the roof is too low by one door, which entertains me greatly walking in with tall people. I like the landlord and he always serves me which is after all what he's there for, I love the Sunday night music quiz, mainly because its so easy I always win but also because of the little squinting fellow who does it. Sometimes it can be full of total scum but that is 90% of Farnboroughs' pub going populace so you have to expect it.
13 Jul 2005 13:03
The Ham and Blackbird, Farnborough
This place is terible. The Spam and Sparrow has a ludicrous no hats policy which has provided me with many years of entertainment, continually wearing hats to be told by a 19 year old 'manager' that I cant wear them inside, which is fine because inside its about as lively as a mausoleum at midnight. I had the misfortune of eating here once, I wont be doing it again, over priced, under staffed and up its own arse. I only ever go in here if I've missed a train even then I sit outside and enjoy the lovely view across the roundabout and the near empty office building across the road. Has anyone successfully parked their car first time in one of the minature parking spaces?
13 Jul 2005 12:58
This place should have been burnt down long ago. At least then it would kill the anthrax growing in the carpets. Great pub for keeping normal Farnborough gypsies out of your face, but still rubbish. If I strolled in wearing a bright T-shirt I get growled at by the bearded gnome behind the bar. A mecca for metalers and thier anorexic spouses, used to be good when the dive bar was still going, quarantine? do me a favour, exclusion zone more like.
13 Jul 2005 12:52
It was a sad, sad, sad day when the best ever landlord Pete "no swearing over here is there lads?" was ousted by the very hand that fed him, namely the brewery/chain of mediocre atmosphere-less pubs with terrible food. The plough, as it was known during the boom years, used to be packed out most nights of the week with friendly locals, happy to sample the fine array of ales and alco-pops vended by the ever friendly Pete. However all of this changed with the present encumbents. Not solely satisfied with putting up the prices 3p a pint week on week they forced out all but the hardiest of regulars who now resort to arriving for a couple at 10pm, instead of the normal 2pm. Since the change the clientele has scraped the bottom of the dirtiest barrel with all of the local scum who were justifiably banned darkening the door once more. Gone are the days of a friendly goodbye from the staff, nowadays your lucky if you dont get thrown out for accidently rubbing your face over the fist of one of the mindless drunk reprobates clogging the bar with their offensive patter, JPS lights and big hairy arses. Seldom have a seen a pub fall from grace as the plough has. From the livliest and nicest pub in farnborough to the biggest dump known to man. Its only a matter of time before the brewery pull out of the archaic white elephant as there are never more than 4 people in there on a Friday night, money spinning it is not. When it closes it will be a sad, sad day, being that its opposite my folks house its been a part of my boozing as long as my overactive liver has. Never the less, the days of whole groups of unrelated people singing along to Abba have been replaced with barmen jumping over bars to break up fights on christmas eve as they've continued to serve the obviously inhebriated semi-pro boxer whilst he engages in a heated discussion with a toothless, tatooed moron called Steve (go on you blues).
A great pub gone bad.
7 Jul 2005 16:29
Went here on Thursday to 'check it out' with my brother as a possible venue for his birthday. Although right up our alley it certainly wouldn't have been to his towny mates tastes. Had many excellent pints of Stowford press, the veritable elixir of life for the discerning cider imbiber, which can be tasteless and foul in the wrong hands. Great pub, good prices, excellent curry house on the other side of the road and the most snack attentive canine ever seen.
14 Jun 2005 16:56
The Plough and Horses, Cove
Hmmmmmmmmmmm, bitter old men? 30 isn't all that old I dont think, is it? Nasty rumours and blatant lies? Everything I have written is the full truth as witnessed by my own eyes, and as for being jealous, I must really stop you there.
You're ability to utilise adaptive camoflage is admirable as I've never seen you or anyone else for that matter in the Plough and apparently enjoying the 'lively discos' or 'open shite' nights, other than the staff themselves. Oh, hang on, it all becomes clear. I'm all for increasing revenue, and breathing life back into what was once a lively pub (I'm only going back 5 years, not 25), but this is not the right setting for what the landlord is trying to achieve. When the cash cows of myself and assembled friends visit a pub you can guarentee a good ammount of cash per person over the bar, by shutting early and forcing us elsewhere it's not just our bodies that leave, it's our custom also. Thats not good business sense.
There's no denying that the landlord is a hard worker, when he strolls back in the pub after spending much of his drinking time down the Courthouse, only to promptly call lasts as he wants to get upstairs with his McChina Wok-Away and the pretty waitress, you know he's had a tough day. I feel sorry for poor mugs like me that are up at 6, do a full days work and just want the opportunity to drink until midnight in a nice atmosphere, not with a slavering mutt relieving itself up the side of the fruity whilst some toothless crone bangs your ankles with her hoover.
So, I dont go to the pub every day, but I do get the opportunity to visit many other pubs now, and I'm in them a damn sight more often than I'd be in the plough in the near future.
Oh, and there's an incredible invention called a spellchecker, you 'young folk' are supposed to know how to use them....
13 Nov 2009 18:15