The Passing of Time Leaves Empty Lives

As we get older, time tends to move at a very different pace. In our youth, a football season seemed to last a lifetime, so did the school day and the six weeks’ holidays and the wait for Christmas was agonising. Now nine months seem to pass in no time at all, possibly because most of us now have a lot of regular stuff in our lives, like endless hours watching the kids at dance or football practice, skilfully avoiding household chores and getting irritated by stuff our partners do that really have very little consequence. All these things help fill in the voids around Leeds games very easily.

Indeed, with Leeds United we are somewhat cheated, because routinely the football season only really lasts until Christmas, and the rest of the time we spend thinking about the next one. But nevertheless, we chalk off the first few games, soon enough it’s the new year and before you know it you’re waving off the season in a haze of beery regret, wishing you had savoured it properly and that Leeds United could have done a bit more by way of creating something memorable during it.

It seems pointless analysing the season just passed and the current state of Leeds United too much, because there is so much up in the air with regards the governing of the club and how things might pan out for next season, and in essence the Old Peacock really acts as a form of escape from the everyday drudgery and pain that currently encompasses life as a Leeds fan. Judging by the contrast in atmosphere in the pub before most matches and then ten minutes later inside Elland Road itself, it’s fair to say that the pub is more successful in reminding Leeds fans what being a Leeds fan is all about, than the football club itself.

Nevertheless, it has certainly been another campaign that never really got started for Leeds United. Back in sunny August it was hard to recall a season that had been ushered in with more optimism and enthusiasm. While we still appeared to be a few players short, there had been genuine investment in the team, no star players sold and there was structure and a sense of cohesion about the club.

Sadly, that had all unravelled before Massimo Cellino was able to get his Halloween costume out (insert your own Steve Evans joke here…..) and by Christmas time Leeds were fighting off relegation. Uwe Rösler was sacked after just 12 games in charge, executive director Adam Pearson left the club in mysterious circumstances and the fans were left to watch a record run of games at Elland Road without a win, through their fingers. Steve Evans wasn’t a popular appointment to replace Rösler, but he has at least managed to get results while playing a brand of football that only a mother could love, and in truth Leeds have never truly looked like being drawn into a relegation battle.

One of the most interesting sideshows during a season when on-pitch matters have routinely failed to inspire, was when the Peacock gained brief notoriety as a result of Massimo Cellino’s comments in the Italian media. Cellino referenced the pub as a competitor taking business away from Elland Road’s beer sales, and used it as justification for his infamous ‘Pie Tax’ levy on tickets in the South Stand. While we briefly considered a playful pie promotion on match days in response, we quietly got on with our business throughout all the fuss, as we have since 1824, we should add, and it certainly didn’t harm our beer sales.

It’s fair to say it’s been pretty meagre fare at Elland Road for much of the season; just seven wins in the league from 23 games, and we even walked away from some of those with the conclusion that root canal surgery would have been preferable. Having said that, some of those ragged wins and anti-climactic draws have been peppered with some spectacular goals, and we have been treated to some rare glimpses of class in amongst some of the decidedly average performances this season. Alex Mowatt hit a beauty to stun Cardiff and record our first home win since dinosaurs roamed the earth back in November. Lewis Cook struck one from even further out in the 1-1 draw with Fulham and even captain Sol Bamba recently got in on the act, netting a crisp half-volley in the 2-1 win over Wolves, which was one of very few home games that could legitimately be described as ‘entertaining’.

Still, we have generally maintained an upbeat stance at the Old Peacock, and in amongst the madness that continually encircles Leeds United and while we wonder whether the club’s season ticket pledge for next season will result in the investment in the team it undoubtedly needs, we have once again enjoyed your company pre and post-match for every home game this season.

We kicked off in August with our new beer garden marquee and there is no doubt it has been a great success in getting Leeds fans served much quicker, reducing queues and stress levels and generally creating a nicer, more comfortable atmosphere. We have been blessed by decent weather on most match days, so a lot of fans have continued to drink outside, although the day the marquee nearly blew away in a gale was a particularly challenging one for all involved. We hope you agree that the marquee has been a welcome addition and we are always happy to hear your feedback on what we can still improve, so let us have your comments direct to staff or via our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Match days at the Old Peacock are a huge undertaking, and a lot of planning goes into making them run smoothly. We have to temporarily re-house a lot of furniture, we have to suspend our normal food menus for the day, we make sure we have enough staff on all the bars throughout the site, and enough security staff on the doors and of course we have to make sure there is plenty of beer on tap. Anyone who has experienced an Old Peacock match day will testify it is a pretty unique experience, and while it is definitely a mad few hours for all of us involved at the pub, we wouldn’t have it any other way. And let’s also not forget, we’ve had quite a lot of practice.

While we have a few plans in store for next season already, we also have the Euros kicking off in June, our Family Fun day at the end of May and of course our weekly food events will be continuing throughout the summer. So even though the football is over, there are still plenty of reasons for making the Peacock pilgrimage.

More about our plans for the Euros in next months’ blog post, but the Family Fun Day will be on us very shortly. It’s often difficult to think of a way to entertain everyone on a Bank Holiday weekend, so we’ve done the thinking for you. We have tried to make this an annual event now and the success of previous years will hopefully attract a healthy crowd on the next Bank Holiday weekend. There will be plenty of food and drink promotions on the day and all sorts of games and events for all ages. Entry is absolutely free from midday on Sunday May 29^th, so come along, bring the kids and enjoy our hospitality for the afternoon.

That’s all for now. Thanks again to all Leeds United fans for your custom, support, impeccable behaviour and for generating such an amazing atmosphere throughout the season. We hope you can stop by over the summer to come and see us.

All the best.
Jon

When Leeds United Finish, The Action Is Only Just Beginning

It’s about this time of year that our plans for the summer are beginning to take shape; holidays are booked, the odd family get-together arranged and maybe a friend’s wedding to attend. In the case of Leeds United, they are for once a bit more advanced than everyone else, and are usually a couple of months into a vague and wishful programme of “re-building for next season” by now, having long since given up on the current one.

2016 is no different, and we once again count down the games until we can pack this season up into a suitcase and send it off on a one-way ticket to ‘destination unknown’. But that’s not to say there isn’t plenty of fun to be had in the meantime, it’s just that none of that directly involves football. The inherent ability of Leeds United’s fans to create their own entertainment is legendary, and has become ever more important in the last few seasons with such a dearth of merriment to be derived from events on the pitch. Whether this is in the stands, under the stands or in the pub before or after the game, Leeds fans are perhaps at their best when the team is at its worst; when the gallows humour and proud defiance comes to the fore, and God knows we’ve had some practice.

Of course we know all about this at the Old Peacock. Despite another season of chaos, legal cases, sterile football and everyone largely running to stand still, the pub has been packed out before and after every home game with a boisterous atmosphere and vibrant energy that you suspect could power a small fishing village in France for a week.

But for once the fun needn’t end with Leeds’s last home game of the season on April 30 versus Charlton, because that other vehicle for abject mediocrity and routine anti-climax, the England national team, will soon be rolling into action.

Yes it’s once again the time for football fans to forget the daily grind of following their club team and support the national side, without the expense, mental anguish and endless hours stuck in train stations in the middle of nowhere. For non or part-time-football fans it is the time to feign interest for a fortnight via car flags, jester hats and St George’s flag face paint, as the country is whipped up into a frenzy of patriotism like we’re going into war.

At the Old Peacock we will certainly be doing our bit, and all of England’s games in the Euros 2016 in France will be beamed live on our big screens, with drinks and food offers to keep you fed and watered as the action unfolds. Our Euros events will start with all of England’s warm-up games against Turkey (May 22) at the Etihad Stadium, Australia (May 27) at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light and Portugal (June 2) at Wembley.

Then the real action starts, and you may wish to make note of these dates and book some time off work or the family chores, if you haven’t already. England start in the Euros on Saturday June 11 against Russia, then play Wales at 2.00pm on Thursday June 16, on a day when national productivity will be at its lowest and highly-creative absenteeism at its highest. England’s final group game is against Slovakia on Monday June 20, and after that I suspect we are tempting fate by trying to work out when or where England are likely to play should they advance from the group stages.

Suffice to say, at the Old Peacock we will be behind England all the way, and with a more-than-passing interest in the other home nations, and whenever they are playing we will be welcoming you all like an Elland Road match day, and we hope that there is an atmosphere to match. Naturally, we will be showing every game live throughout the tournament, and that includes the exploits of Northern Ireland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.

In the midst of England’s friendlies in the build-up to the Euros we have a Family Fun Day on Sunday May 29, which is a Bank Holiday weekend. There will be plenty of family activities throughout the day, with games for kids and an adult tug-of-war, along with food and drink offers to keep everybody happy. Precise details will be on our Twitter and Facebook pages and posted in the pub nearer the time, but for now pencil the date in.

Until then there are another three home games left for you to enjoy/endure, whilst partaking of your pre-match ritual at the Old Peacock. Leeds entertain Reading on Saturday April 16 and then three days later welcome Wolverhampton Wanderers on Tuesday April 19. These double-header home games usually attract an impressive overseas following, so we are bracing ourselves for the usual influx of the Scandinavian and Irish contingents setting up camp in the pub for a few days. As mentioned above, Elland Road hosts its final home game on April 30 when Charlton Athletic come to town; another club with disgruntled fans and ownership wrangles. At least we can be thankful that Leeds are not staring down the barrel of relegation back to League One, as Charlton are, but certainly we can have some sympathy with their plight.

The final topic to bring to your attention this month is our Wednesday Curry Night, which is bubbling away nicely and becoming as popular as our Thursday Steak Night and traditional Sunday Lunch. We have a choice of three curries each week, usually a hot, medium and mild variation, and a mixture of lamb, chicken and beef. Vegetarian options are available too. Many of our customers so far have commented on the outstanding value, whereby for £19.99 you get a pickle tray and poppadums to share, two curries with naan breads, and a bowl of rice to share, PLUS a bottle of house wine or four halves of Ossett Brewery ales. If the fresh-cooked aromatic curries aren’t to your taste, however, our normal menu is always available, so you have no excuse not to check out what everyone is talking about.

So we will see you in April for the last three home games, plenty of times in between for our great themed food events, and several more times over the summer, when the football never stops! In the meantime, check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for all the latest updates on events, menus and match days and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

Football Is Nothing Without Fans……And Beer

Football and drinking go hand in hand, they always have. It’s not just a cultural thing either, although that has a big part to play in it. The concept of having a drink in a favoured establishment before the game is as old as the game itself. It’s just what you do. Football fans are creatures of habit, and whether it is a superstitious thing or merely a routine source of pleasure away from the humdrum of work and the weekly chores at home, a drink before the game and a catch-up with mates is quite often the highlight of a Saturday. Certainly if that Saturday involves watching Leeds United.
When the ‘Peacock Inn’ first appeared on a barren patch of land at the bottom of the hill leading from Beeston village in 1826, the rules of Association Football didn’t even exist, never mind Leeds United, who would appear as a by-product of Leeds City’s expulsion from the Football League some 93 years later.

In the 19th century pubs were very much a working class domain. When the Peacock opened its doors for the very first time, Beeston had an estimated population of just 894 people. By the end of the century this had grown to nearly 3,000 as families migrated to the area to work in the many local pits. Villages such as the nearby Islington, Hunslet and Holbeck gradually merged together and the densely populated area saw several pubs materialise to serve the growing local workforce.

Football didn’t have any presence in West Yorkshire until the early 20th century; the West Riding was a strictly rugby and cricket stronghold. Several amateur clubs were playing in the area, but the Football Association were keen to make inroads into the traditional territory of their rival sports by promoting the professional game, and Bradford City arrived first in 1903, then Leeds City in 1904 and finally Huddersfield Town in 1907. We all know Leeds United’s story from there.

The local pits and clay mines closed towards the end of the 19th century and the ‘Elland Road’ area was a sporting metropolis at the time Leeds United was formed in 1919, with greyhound racing, speedway, crown green bowling (on what is now the Peacock beer garden no less) and cricket all played to a high level at some stage, while the embryonic Leeds United attempted to establish itself both in the area and in professional football itself. By the 1970s it had finally done so, and the whole geographic area surrounding Elland Road had been changed accordingly. Lowfields Road was built in 1923 purely to serve as a conduit between Elland Road and Gelderd Road to transport football fans away from the ground. Also, a prime justification for the M621 passing within yards of Elland Road when it was built in 1973, was the ease of access to one of the biggest football clubs in the country at the time.

It is true that the Old Peacock possibly needs Leeds United more than Leeds United needs the Old Peacock. The motorway carved the area in two and completely changed the demographic of the surrounding landscape, but the Old Peacock survived and still does. Although there is still a healthy population of around 16,000 in the Beeston area today, the pub trade is very different, and the Peacock is no longer as central to the community as it once was.

That said, the Peacock’s enduring appeal transcends mere football. Local pubs are monuments to England’s industrial heritage and melancholy symbolism of an unsophisticated past; a living, still existing history book dripping in faces, smiles, stories, characters and laughter, cultural emblems built on customs and regimented but simple pleasures.

Pre-match rituals and the well-trodden path between the local pub and the football ground make up much of the eternal fabric that binds fans and football clubs together. These are the bits you don’t see on Match of the Day, the bits that don’t secure multi-million pound product endorsements, the bits that existed long before Sky Sports ‘invented football’ in 1992 and pitched it to a more prosperous audience. These are the internal organs of football, which stoically continue to function up and down the country in the face of progress, and offer football fans their lifeblood at every level of the game every single week.

Local pubs, local beer and local food for local people, maybe, but also welcoming those who travel far and wide for their regular fix of everything that surrounds the beautiful game, and the hearty, flavoursome goodness of life itself.

Drinking inside football grounds, in comparison, is a somewhat hollow experience. Football fans have been exploited since the beginning of time, but never more so than now. Held captive for a couple of hours, choices are limited and ‘value for money’ is dismissed by the football machine as some form of unworkable Marxist theory. Football fans are held to ransom and their loyalty to the club is exploited by over-priced beer and food of dubious quality.

Leeds United is not the only football club guilty of this of course, everyone does it. Throughout the country, drinking beer in concourses beneath football stands can be a depressing pastime. Clutching a freezing cold pint and framed by bare concrete walls, you stand in a dark wind-tunnel with all the hospitality of a nuclear power plant, and in a setting that doesn’t so much remind you of home and friends and comfort, but of grim, post-war Soviet austerity. You stare around not at framed photos of famous ex-players or a roaring fire, but at exposed breeze blocks, un-lagged pipework and air conditioning vents, not installed for the convenience of the rank and file supporter, but to serve the plush suites upstairs to which you will never be party.

There was no licence to sell alcohol at Elland Road until 1st April 1959. But it is only in this generation that football clubs have woken up to the fact that alcohol can serve as a vital source of income. For that reason, it is surprising that the vast majority of football clubs don’t try and do it a bit better, by conducting research into what football fans like to drink or eat, and making the experience a little more comfortable, and, well, anchored in the 21st century.

It all makes Massimo Cellino’s recent suggestion (in an interview with an Italian journalist) that the Old Peacock was taking alcohol sales from Leeds United more than a little perplexing. His intimation – it is widely agreed but not 100% clear – was that the marquee opened in the Peacock beer garden in the summer of 2015 had affected the club’s match day income. This has then been used as justification for the £5 ‘pie tax’ added onto the price of tickets, but only in the South Stand at Elland Road, rather than in all stands.

Quite apart from the fact that the Old Peacock was selling beer nearly a century before Leeds United was a twinkle in the Football League’s eye, and exists as an independent enterprise in the Elland Road area like various other food and drink establishments, the marquee installed last summer hasn’t increased the pub’s capacity. A licence exists to hold a capacity of 1100 people on the site at any one time, and the marquee hasn’t changed that. It has just allowed people to get served quicker and easier on a busy match day.

The marquee is an investment made for the comfort of the core customers; Leeds United fans. It is a result of seeing problems and listening to concerns, and through a desire to make the match day experience a better one for everybody. The feedback we have received has been very positive and consequently the Peacock is thriving as a progressive, buoyant and successful entity.

Across the road at Leeds United, the mood is decidedly different, and this brings nobody with the club’s blood in their veins any pleasure. A major concern for many Leeds fans is that the current regime at the club has little interest in the foundations of what made Leeds United in the first place; the people, the area, the community, the past players, management and staff. Leeds United is built on a rich history, not always a successful one, but it is what it is because of that history. The Old Peacock is a part of that and has always harmoniously existed in tandem with the football club. Leeds fans understand that, football fans understand that.


Drinking, eating, rituals, affordable choice and convenience. It is very easy to look and listen and to act upon what you see and hear; basic supply and demand principles, but providing what people actually want and how they actually want it.  It’s how you survive for 190 years, and as they approach their centenary in three years’ time, Leeds United need to start doing the same.

Jon

Beating Blue February

I don’t know who comes up with these things, but somebody somewhere dubbed the third Monday in January ‘Blue Monday’, ie. the one day in the year that the most people simply cannot face. Naturally, getting out of bed for the first day back after Christmas and New Year, assuming you have been lucky enough to have a long uninterrupted break over the festivities, is a grind rather like pushing custard up a steep hill, but it is the third Monday which has been dubbed the ‘most depressing day of the year’.

There is some logic to this of course. The first day after a holiday is held, I would guess universally, in the realms of an unavoidable irritant, an imposition that is on your mind throughout your break and an inevitable point in the distance that grows nearer much quicker than you want it to. However, it is a constant you know is coming, whereas the third Monday in January is deemed the most depressing day of the year, because you still have fond memories of the festivities fresh in your mind, hell, you probably haven’t even washed the pickled beetroot stains out of your best shirt. But you realise you are stuck in the drudgery of a seemingly never-ending routine, the mornings are still dark and unwelcoming and salvation in terms of sun, holidays, even the weekend, seems a long way away.

I look at February much the same. January you accept as a month in which you buckle down, take hardship square on the chin and have a sense of resolve against whatever life throws at you. By the time February comes around you are impatient for a bit of the good life, you are wanting to quicken the pace to the summer months and wear less than four layers of clothing, but the mornings aren’t any more hospitable, the weather is still throwing violent curveballs to challenge you and shutting the front door on the world to produce a cosy night in is pretty much all you have to look forward to.

As with most things that trouble us in life, I think we can blame Leeds United’s failings for engendering this mood, as our season is usually over in February. This year is slightly different though. While the January transfer window has once again passed us by as if it is just some kind of spiritual experience that happens to other people, and the club appears to have pretty much given up on the league and building a stronger squad this season, we DO still have ambitions in the FA Cup, as I write.

It is unusual for Leeds to have an interest in the FA Cup past the first week in January, never mind into February. Now, a Fifth Round tie away at Watford on the weekend of February 20^th looks a daunting prospect on paper, but one that is not beyond Leeds if luck is with them and some of that indefinable FA Cup fairy dust is somehow sprinkled on them this year. I can certainly envisage a replay and a stirring Elland Road occasion to follow, which Leeds fans have been so starved of in recent years.

After the FA Cup tie, Leeds still have seven home games remaining in the season, and it will take a marketing genius to drum up some interest in those, should the FA Cup dreams have been discarded with the Fish and Chip papers once again. The problem Leeds United have is that they are relying on blind faith and not providing something for fans to buy into; like the outside glimmer of a play-off push. For the fifth season running, that appears to be gone before February is a week old, and only the suggestive wink and seductive glamour of the FA Cup is distracting us from the barren and fruitless path towards the end of the season in May.

Leeds United aren’t helped by Sky Sports in making home games attractive to their disgruntled fan base of course. The Saturday February 13^th match with top-of-the-table Middlesbrough was one of the few standout Elland Road fixtures remaining, until it was moved to Monday 15^th for live television coverage. The knock-on effect is that a few thousand home and away fans will no longer be able to travel, and floating match-by-match fans will decide not to pay Category A prices when they can watch it on television for free. Suddenly a vibrant local derby becomes a damp squib with no atmosphere, and like comparing Pep Guardiola to Gary Neville in terms of the spectacle Sky Sports will attempt to bill it as.

Whilst our sympathies are first and foremost with fans, particularly those from abroad, who have lost money based on the re-arranged fixture or who are travelling anyway but won’t see a game, such a decision also has a knock-on effect to us at the Old Peacock. The difference in drinking and eating habits between a traditional Saturday afternoon fixture and a Monday night game is quite dramatic, and while a certain amount of midweek fixtures over a season are unavoidable and budgeted for, extra ones like the Middlesbrough game hit us hard in the pocket. Let’s hope Leeds can earn a replay against Watford by way of some compensation, or better still a win at Vicarage Road and a bumper home tie in the Quarter Finals.  Everyone will be grateful for that in more ways than one.

Of course, I am being slightly tongue-in-cheek when I say there is not much to look forward to in February. Our Curry Night has started, and is the perfect tonic for those cold, winter Wednesday evenings. There is nothing better than some spicy Asian cuisine to warm you up from head to toe, and our great value deal – two curries and a bottle of wine or 4 x Ossett Brewery ales for £19.99 - has proved an instant hit.

We also have a great offer for any lovebirds out there with our Valentine’s menu. Friday 12^th and Saturday 13^th of February sees us offer a three-course meal and a bottle of wine at just £35 per couple, and we are already taking bookings for this, so give us a call (0113 2715962) or pop in to ensure you secure a table and can indulge your loved one.

If you factor in our ever-popular Thursday Steak Night and Sunday Lunch menus, and also the series of Leeds United home games against Nottingham Forest, Middlesbrough and Fulham, there is plenty going on at the Old Peacock in February, and suddenly the second month of the year is not looking like the insufferable chore that it did earlier.

You can follow what else is going on via our Twitter and Facebook pages. But in the meantime, let’s just agree a pact, and make the effort to get out of the house this month. I know a warm cosy place where we can meet with friendly faces, great music, wholesome and hearty food and fine, tasty beers. I wish the Old Peacock could cure Leeds United’s seasonal blues too, but in the meantime, we’ve got the solutions to yours, so we’ll see you down here soon.

All the best,

Jon

A Little Bit Of What You Fancy

January is traditionally a time when people like to offer us lifestyle advice; as if wise to the fact that we have been eating and drinking too much over the preceding two weeks or so, which is probably true, but also on the assumption that we actually feel guilty about it. Some of us are stronger than others in this respect, or at least wiser to the hard sell of those preying on our remorse over those six extra slices of pork pie.


Few things are more doomed to failure than the ‘new year, new me’ short term-ism of reluctant cash injections on diet magazine subscriptions, gym memberships and dry weekends watching ‘Take Me Out’ with a glass of Cranberry Schloer. You can imagine the scene as willpower is pushed to the limit throughout the country; invites to the pub are turned down in exchange for a case of mineral water and a DVD, and the Steak and Chips treat on a Thursday is blown out for a joyless homemade Cous-Cous Salad.

It gets to the stage where a Ryvita with low-fat spread at midnight is the only carefree vice you will allow yourself, and while you hear tales of your mates out enjoying life, your cheerless existence will continue until you hit a pre-determined and frankly unrealistic weight target. Or you give in and join the rest of us back in the real world.


In short, if we truly wanted to adopt such a lifestyle, we wouldn’t wait until January every year to half-heartedly attempt it, and we wouldn’t approach it with disdain, rather like a residential health and safety training course in Luton. The calendar change from December to January, in truth, is no more significant than May 21^st turning into May 22^nd. Night turns into day, like any of the other 365 days, yet many people are lured into new and uncomfortable behavioural patterns which any other time of year wouldn’t be on their radar.

That is not to say that we at the Old Peacock frown upon a healthy lifestyle of course. Everything in moderation is the way; “a little bit of what you fancy” as the saying goes, and the pathway to wellbeing is being able to balance exercise and nutrition with good food and good beer all year round, rather than a lacklustre and ill-fated attempt at shock therapy once we’re knee deep in regret and the clock ticks over into a new year. Which is why we are sticking to a winning formula at the Old Peacock in 2016.

We know what you want and we know how to get it to you.

2015 proved to be a hugely successful year for the pub. Our food menus were more popular than ever, we hosted three great nights with ex-Leeds United stars Norman Hunter, Duncan McKenzie and John Lukic, we installed our new match day marquee in the beer garden and we took our place on a global stage when we welcomed the Rugby World Cup to Elland Road.

Perhaps most importantly, we continued to welcome thousands of regular customers through our doors. Being where we are, it would be foolish to ignore the fact that Leeds United match days are a big deal, and so much work goes into ensuring they run smoothly and everyone has a great time. This is why we invested in the match day marquee and I think everyone agrees it has been a huge success and has contributed to smaller beer queues and happier faces all round. I have spoken before about how the pub is part of Leeds United’s tapestry – having existed long before the football club was even formed - and it is hugely important that we recognise that and be faithful to our heritage as a vital cog in the match day experience for Leeds United fans.

At the same time, the Old Peacock has been an essential part of everyday life in the local community since 1826, even more so today as other hostelries in the area like the New Peacock and the Wheatsheaf have long since bitten the dust. For that reason, we also work very hard to ensure that on the 340 days-or-so that Leeds United aren’t playing over the road, we are serving our regulars with a good range of local ales and providing hearty, well-cooked food on our menus.

The success of our kitchen and how busy it is during the week and on non-match weekends, and also over the recent Christmas period, suggests we have got the formula right, but we won’t be resting on our laurels this year.

In our bid to offer something for everyone, we will be launching our new Curry Night in the next few weeks. To accompany our Burger, Steak and Sunday Lunch menus, our Curry offerings will be a feast of the best eastern cuisine, a value-for-money midweek treat to get the taste buds tingling and a nod to the nation’s favourite dish. The wafting aroma of the finest Indian spices might even tempt some of our regulars who have a more traditional palate.


                         

More details on that soon, but in the meantime we are pressing ahead with more of our successful Leeds United ex-player nights for 2016 and are always working on sourcing new beers, wines and spirits, and introducing new dishes to our ever-expanding all-day menu. So while fad diets, intense detox and a pretty dismal sin-free January is on the agenda for much of the country, or at least for a fortnight or so, we will continue offering a little bit of what you fancy at the Old Peacock. It can’t do any harm.

On a more serious note, regulars in the pub will notice the absence of Dawn behind the bar over the next few weeks. Dawn was featured in our last blog post, being a veteran of nearly thirty years’ service at the Old Peacock, and offered us some priceless insight into a time when all the Leeds United first team players used to frequent the pub. Unfortunately Dawn had an accident last week, has fractured her fibula in her right leg, and will be on crutches and off work for several weeks.

Staff and management have often joked that, like the ravens fleeing the Tower of London, the pub might collapse and fall down if Dawn ever left, and I guess we are about to find out. Dawn’s absence will only be temporary of course and she is already complaining of boredom, so hopefully she will make a speedy recovery and be back pulling pints and changing barrels before too long.

Leeds United’s results have picked up in recent weeks and thankfully there is an air of calm around the place for once, although with the January transfer window opening this week we don’t expect that to last for long. January is a fairly quiet time for home games though, with only Rotherham in the FA Cup and a date with Bristol City on the 23^rd on the agenda.

Just the job to ease us into the New Year. In the meantime, check out our Facebook and Twitter pages for all the latest updates on events, menus and match days and we look forward to seeing you all again during the course of 2016. Happy New Year!

All the best,
Jon

1992, The Old Peacock And The Last Champions

It may surprise some football fans to learn that the game existed before 1992. Sky Sports have spent billions of pounds since then trying to airbrush history and convince us otherwise. Leeds fans on the other hand know very well that football existed before the Premier League turned the game into a vehicle through which to exploit, extract and exhibit unsavoury wealth, because that was the last time we won anything.

Football was a very different game in 1992. Footballers themselves were not far removed from you and me, at least in terms of living on the same planet, and phrases like “image rights”, “pre-contract agreement” and “loyalty bonus” were reserved for the Hollywood stars that footballers would effectively soon become. Furthermore, the fact that Leeds United’s 1992 title-winning team trained every day on pitches behind the West Stand car park meant that Elland Road was their home, the place where unbreakable bonds were formed, and their playground; the surrounding area was a big part of their lives and the football club and its everyday comings and goings was, by its very nature, an integral part of the local community.

A natural by-product of having such a strong and identifiable entity on your doorstep was that places like United Fisheries (now Graveleys) and the café next to it, were routinely frequented by first team players and staff, and needless to say, the Old Peacock was no stranger to the Leeds United squad either.

Dawn Oates started working at the Peacock in 1986, aged 18, and is still pulling pints for the swarms of Leeds fans passing through the pub today. But the Elland Road landscape is very different in 2015, and rather than routinely mingling with the rank and file fan, a supporter would do a double take today if they spotted a Leeds United squad member strolling around LS11, a Chris Wood penalty miss away from the cotton wool protection of the Thorp Arch bubble. For Dawn and the Old Peacock in the mid-1980s, however, visiting Leeds United first team players were as regular as draymen.

“Funnily enough the first person I ever served behind the bar was Mickey Adams,” Dawn begins “and at that time he was my hero and I was shaking. He asked for a Coke and I couldn’t pour it. I can’t remember what my first game was but I started going when (John) Sheridan and (Ian) Baird were playing. I was working in the markets then and in the pub part-time. So on a Saturday I would work in the mornings on the market, come here for 1pm and work the match, then go to the match and work after as well.”

Professional footballers have always been larger than life figures of course, but before the Premier League elevated them to an untouchable status, they were still at ease with the working class roots of the game, and their match day routine wasn’t far removed from the basic trappings of a traditional spit and sawdust Sunday League team.

“It was regular,” continues Dawn “they all used to come in, John Sheridan, Gordon Strachan, David Batty, Vinnie Jones, Bobby Davison, Chris Fairclough, Rod Wallace. They wouldn’t come in so much after training, usually after an away game, because the coach used to go from Elland Road, when that was the training ground, and dropped them off again because their cars were there. And you knew ten minutes after the bus had gone past they would all be driving in and stop for a good hour, or whatever. We quite often ended up going into town with some of them to Mr Craigs nightclub and there were some drunken nights, some very drunken nights…..”

And incongruously the Old Peacock became a refuge for the players, despite being one of the most prominent and identifiable Leeds United landmarks. “They all came in here, but they liked it in here because nobody messed them about with photos and autograph hunting. It was a natural occurrence and regulars just took to it, you know ‘oh Batts is here, alright mate!’ that kind of thing.”

“Some of the young lads used to stay in digs around here, so in an afternoon you would sometimes get the likes of Gary Kelly coming in and he’d just have a drink of pop and talk to me in the afternoon, because at one point he was really, really homesick.”

At this point you wonder whether unsung heroes like Dawn have perhaps been a significant but unrecognised influence on Leeds United’s modern history. Some compassion, a homely reception and the lending of an ear on a lonely afternoon maybe resurrected Gary Kelly’s career and turned a timid and undistinguished trainee about to return to Ireland into a veteran of over 500 first team appearances and two World Cups.

"I remember when Vinnie Jones signed for us,” recalls Dawn with a grin “he used to sit outside the pub and eat his Fish & Chips before he came in. I looked out of the window once and thought to myself ‘who’s eating their own food?’ I shouted at him, and it was Vinnie Jones. I thought nothing more of it, then that night we were out in town in Madison’s and he was in there and he said to me ‘You caught me eating my Fish & Chips outside the pub today didn’t you?’ and I said ‘well you don’t bring your own food in then do you?’ But whatever the papers said about him, he was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. A real gentle giant.”

In some ways it is comforting to know the players of the 1992 title-winning era treated Elland Road and its surrounding area as their home, but at the same time it perhaps explains why the players today might feel detached from it and ill at ease. Back in the early-1990s, it appears the players were drawn to Elland Road even when they didn’t need to be there.

“They used to play pool a lot,” says Dawn “I remember a Leeds game that was called off due to snow in the morning, and I was due to go but I was walking past the pub in these massive moon boots and I called in and Batts and his Dad and Gary Speed were in. So we spent all afternoon playing doubles at Pool. Me and Speed v Batts and his Dad all afternoon.”

“But they were all nice lads, they had no airs and graces about them, you just took them as normal people. We used to go out a lot together with a few of them, going for an Indian that sort of thing, and we went to a cricket club quite a lot that Noel Blake used to play for, on sunny afternoons we’d just sit on the grass drinking beers, it was great. We went to a Quiz Night somewhere, and we were in a car driven by David Rocastle, and (Eric) Cantona was there. He always pretended he couldn’t speak very good English, but he spoke perfect English that night……….”

In 1996 a major part of Howard Wilkinson’s 10-year plan drawn up when he became manager in 1988 came to fruition, when he moved the club’s training ground to Thorp Arch near Wetherby and built the academy structure that has furnished Leeds United’s first team with a steady supply of quality players ever since, albeit the club has not always utilised such resources to their fullest. Back at Elland Road, a somewhat bleak and blustery landscape developed, some of the life and the recognisable, everyday face of Leeds United had gone from the area and certainly some of the soul of the football club was taken away. While office, ticketing and retail staff still frequent the area, it was no longer a place to go star-spotting and for the players to call home.

“The atmosphere in the pub didn’t really change,” recalls Dawn “but if I was bored on a morning I sometimes used to go and watch them train for an hour. You could just stand by the fence and watch them. But it’s all changed now and you can’t mingle with the players, it’s just autographs and photographs, you never get the one-on-one chats like you used to.” 

In a world rife with fear, suspicion and mis-trust, much of which, let’s be honest, is well-founded, it is sad that professional footballers are now so detached, in most cases at least, from the regular fan base. And while the Old Peacock is still a home from home for thousands of Leeds United fans, and always will be, it no longer reverberates to the laughter of Leeds United players and their post-training or post-match recreation, like it did in the early 1990s and like it did right back to the birth of the club in 1919 and Leeds City before it. Life moves on of course, and we move with it, but while it does, let’s cherish the memories of a fantastic past within the walls of the Old Peacock, and raise a pint to them.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and keep up-to-date with events on our Facebook page also.

All the best,
Jon Howe

Floored Genius

Uwe Rosler, Neil Redfearn, Brian McDermott, even Steve Evans, they all may feel under-appreciated. Certainly they will feel they don’t get the credit they deserve and nobody really notices the countless hours of hard work they have put in to Leeds United. But then that’s the nature of football; a cut-throat business, particularly so at Leeds United, of course.

In other walks of life we probably all have our own stories about our best work perhaps being ignored or not being given due credit. Be it at home, at work or on the five-a-side pitch with your mates, it’s always nice to get a slice of the glory. Save a thought then for local artist Leyla Murr, creator of the elegant and refined floor mosaic in the refurbished Old Peacock. Yes, that’s it, the one that thousands of you walk all over and probably never notice on a match day, but when the pub is a little quieter it is a feature that radiates the homely, yet polished and sophisticated feel that is the very essence of what Ossett Brewery wanted to create at this most special of football pubs.

Leyla’s creation is the centrepiece that effortlessly complements the yellow and white floor tiles and the understated Leeds United styling in and around the pub, but essentially it displays with due reverence, the famous Peacock motif, and as such is perhaps the central feature of the 2013 refurbishment of the pub.

A mutual friend working in the pub introduced Leyla to joint managing director Jamie Lawson when the idea of a dominant artistic feature was first discussed.

                   

“I am a full-time artist and paint mostly in my studio,” explains Leyla “so when Jamie asked me to do a mosaic I was very excited about doing something different.” The mosaic is based on Ossett Brewery’s re-designed but hugely popular Peacock motif, also showcased in stained glass above the back door.

“He gave me a small image to use as a guide,” continues Leyla in explaining how the design became a work of art “the mosaic was a one metre diameter circle so I had to transpose the image onto a large piece of paper, then cover it with the transparent piece of plastic cover. On top of that I put a fine mesh and then glued each individual tile onto the mesh with a special glue and a set of fine pliers.”

In a painstaking process involving a level of patience that most of us couldn’t imagine, the mosaic took 45 hours altogether to complete, using around 8,000 tiled pieces.

“It was July 2013 and we had a very hot summer then and I sat in the garden at home every day for two weeks working on the mosaic. I was instructed that the colours had to be predominantly yellow and blue as those are the colours of the Leeds United Football Club, the Peacock being an important part of the history of the club etc.”

With the wholesale refurbishment at the pub almost complete, Leyla’s hotly-anticipated creation was one of the final pieces to be put into place, with the precise nature of the creation bearing witness to the eye for detail involved in all areas of the pub’s new look.

                       

“I completed it at home and transported it to the pub,” Leyla recalls “there was a hole in the ground when I brought the completed mosaic. I was aware of the colour of the surrounding tiles as I was provided with some samples and Jamie wanted the band around the peacock to be blue rather than yellow, so that had to be changed at the last minute, as you can see from the images.”

The words ‘proud as a peacock’ have something of a double meaning in the case of Leyla’s spectacular creation. The completed mosaic sensationally fulfilled the brief in projecting the dignity and honour of the famous peacock image, but on the flipside, there was no tolerance for the mosaic to stand proud of the floor surface. Leyla’s precise measurements ensured her artwork sat flush on the floor with no danger of the hordes of Leeds fans shuffling through on a match day tripping over a protruding edge, or sadly, even knowing it was there.

Leyla’s work is there for all to see, a durable emblem to the pub’s heritage but a feature that rightly instils great pride in the artist. Leyla, who now lives in Bradford, explains “I was very happy doing something important for a place like the Peacock and felt very honoured to be given this opportunity. My son, who is 29 now, was at a Thorpe Arch Youth Academy aged 12, he was a goalkeeper and I used to drive him for training sessions three times a week, where he used to also see the senior team having a kickabout, including stars like Jonathan Woodgate, Alan Smith and Lee Bowyer!”

Names from the past perhaps, but Leyla’s floor mosaic is an enduring piece of art that should outlive many Leeds United stars of the present and the future. So next time you are in the pub take a close look at it, nobody will bat an eyelid if you are on your hands and knees bowing down to the peacock!

Of course we enter November with another head coach in the extremely hot seat at Elland Road. Welcome to Steve Evans and good luck in what has somehow become one of the most difficult jobs in football.

Football doesn’t pose us too many problems at the Old Peacock; it’s a pretty simple concept. When Leeds United are at home we are open and welcoming as many Leeds fans as we can through our doors. It makes it a bit more difficult for everyone when these games are midweek, and after October’s Thursday night oddity, we have another midweek game very quickly in November.

Cardiff are the visitors to Elland Road on Tuesday the 3^rd, before two Yorkshire derbies at Huddersfield and then back here on the 21^st for the visit of Rotherham United and the return of Neil Redfearn. In between those games is another frequent irritation of the modern game; the international break, where we are left kicking our heels and dreaming up ways to avoid shopping at B&Q. Be assured we will be open at the Old Peacock if you need some respite and a substitute for your pre-match fix.

We are not far from the mad Christmas period now, so if you haven’t got your plans sorted for family, work or celebrations with friends, let the Old Peacock look after all the hassle for you. We have two menus for Christmas parties in the lead up the 25^th and for the big day itself. Places are being booked up fast so contact the pub direct on oldpeacock@ossett-brewery.co.uk or by phone on 0113 2715962 to secure your place.

In the meantime, come and visit us for lunch or dinner when our fantastic menus are on offer six days a week.
 

Finally, for special competitions, announcements and promotions follow us on Twitter and Facebook where all the latest information is posted.

All the best,

Jon