The Kingfisher - Corby

I'd never been to a football match before, never wanted to in all honesty. I put this down to the enduring trauma of always being picked last for the junior school playground team, something young captains today would do well to reflect on! I could've been a contender...

I have seen a football match on the telly though, a memorable afternoon at The Wellington in Leicester back in 2001, the pub jam-packed with England fans watching their team thrash a combined East & West German side 5-1. Like shooting fish in a barrel it was, no competition at all! Needless to say I haven't watched an England match since, where's the fun in watching a team win like that all the time.

Since moving to the tippy-top of Northamptonshire I've done what all serious football fans do and swiftly change my allegiance to the local team, Corby Town. Because it's fickle journeymen like me that keep the game 'real' for lifelong club fans. 'Corby Til I Die, or Move House, Whichever's Sooner' is my mantra. Besides, my true love Leicester Tigers are going through a fallow spell, and five decades of waiting for Leicester City to win anything has taken its toll. Not that I've ever been to Filbert Street mind...

Corby Town (aka The Steelmen, nobody knows why!) have been hitting the back of the net since 1948, which makes me somewhat late to the game. Their very first match against local rivals Wellingborough Town also ended with a 5-1 win, and I gather this is the standard scoreline for important football matches now. I have to say I'm really enjoying this deep-dive into the history and complexities of the Beautiful Game, a convivial pastime with all the passion and excitement of Crown Green Bowls, though with much less of the rowdiness and bad language I'm pleased to say. I have a friend who likes football, a West Bromwich Albion fan in fact (aka The Baggies, nobody knows why!). He kindly offered to accompany me to a proper football match, something he's rarely seen in truth, this was going to be an eye-opener for both of us.

Studying the Form

I wanted goals-goals-goals, all six of them in fact, and since cup matches seem to deliver the most goals per pound of ticket price, Banbury Town (aka The Puritans, honestly, who knows!) in the third round of the FA Trophy competition seemed to fit the bill nicely. I also wanted the full matchday experience, from Ready Brek and Lorne Sausage breakfast, pre and post match friendly pub session, finishing with victorious open-doored bus ride home with ticker-tape and samba band reception, it's not much to ask... The traditional away-day four cans of Kestrel Lager on the train would have to wait for an away-day.

These things are best done mob-handed, myself and Baggie Pete joined by mystery third man Baggie Paul (aka Cottingham Stack FC 5-a-side). With practically every pub available to choose from, each one a potential Every Pub In Corby (EPIC) notch on the pint glass, we put it to a vote. The Wetherspoon lost I'm sad to say, Carling and Smoothflow it was then...

The Kingfisher

I thought I knew Corbys pubs well enough, thought I'd scuttled furtively past all of them in my time. But I'm ashamed to say I'd never even heard of The Kingfisher until I went looking for it. Tucked away in a residential area to the west of the town centre, it's a pub that's not exactly on the way to anywhere, very much a locals local. It's also something of a classic in its own way, a stylish and distinctive product of post-war design of a type that's becoming ever-rarer.

So what do we know about The Kingfisher. Like its near-neighbour the Corby Candle, it was originally conceived as a Phipps Brewery house, albeit under the ownership of Watney Mann by the time it was built in the 60's. Designed in-house by the Phipps architects, and therefore quite similar in style to many of the brewerys post-war estate pubs. Presumably designed to complement the adjacent Pytchly Court shopping precinct, one of those self-contained 'neighbourhood' shopping areas that has absolutely everything you could ever need or want, from Chippy, Indian and Chinese takeaways, to a tidy little Laundrette to get the takeaway stains out the next day. No Micropub as yet though...

These images (above), reproduced c/o the Boak & Bailey Beer Blog, are from Watneys inhouse magazine 'The Red Barrel' circa 1964, and show there have been a few changes over the years. The sleek 'moderne' brick exterior has a new entrance to the side, directly into what is now the function room, and appears to have lost the attractive glazed porch at the original front entrance. The funky angular 'Kingfisher' sign and Phipps NBC star on the gable end are long gone of course, as is a curious glazed 'shop window' to the rear which was probably the original Off Sales facility, now bricked-up and anonymous. Why 'The Kingfisher'? No idea, perhaps there was a brook nearby populated with the eponymous bird...

We arrived in the middle of an important horse racing fixture, all eyes swivelling immediately from the thoroughbreds on screen to the three wheezing old cart horses that'd just walked in. Guinness and Carling, ordered confidently and without recourse to asking stupid and embarrassing questions, such as "Have you got anything on handpump?...", settled the locals and we found a nice little table in the corner to observe the ebb and flow of afternoon drinkers. It was busy, a few Steelmen scarves, a lot of interest in the horses, a row of Guinness pints settling on the bar, all very local and pleasingly proper.

The view to the Horses

The Pool Table had been pressed into service for a game of cards, which we were cordially invited to join. Something involving small-change and the Horses, sadly we had no small-change and little enough time for the Horses so declined the offer. By now the Football appeared on the other telly, Pete and Pauls hearts sinking when they realised it was Leicester losing rather than the West Brom' drubbing they were hoping for.

A bright, tidy, well apportioned boozer then. Some of the old 'banquet' seating has survived, reupholstered for modern tastes, the 'quality pinewood' that Watneys boasted of on opening survives with a few coats of fresh paint. A 'destination' boozer? Maybe not. Good for a pint whilst waiting for your takeaway, why not! You'll see from the photos there's a good mix (of men) in, entirely typical for a Saturday afternoon on match days I'd imagine, I guess the women have better things to do...

We liked it, and we're fussy, but by now I was getting a bit edgy. Time was ticking on and we had no real idea how to get to the football. I didn't want to arrive late and miss Corby Town's first two goals! As it happens, I needn't have worried...

Pub Games in the Function Room