Hub Marketing - The Top Ten Trips...

The ongoing coronavirus lockdown situation means Hub Marketing activities have been on pause since Mr D9 went clubbing in Penn at the end of February. We're unlikely to be filing any new outings for a little while yet, so now seems as good a time as any to unleash a few Greatest Hits-style retrospectives looking back on memorable moments from the past nine years...

- Balding barnet in Kingstanding -

Let's start then with this summary of our all time Top Ten Trips, expertly curated by the Chairman himself. There have been 126 Hub Marketing outings in total thus far, ranging from blizzards to heatwaves and doorstep locals to farther flung adventures. This post counts down Mr D9's cherished choices in reverse order whilst also giving me an excuse to dig out some previously unseen pictures, such as the Kingstanding bald spot appearance shown above...

#10 >>> we enter the listing with our November 2018 visit to Dudley Winter Ales Fayre, an event Mr D9 cheekily refers to as the 'beard festival' given some of the facial hair on display. Besides our attendance at Dudley Town Hall, the day will be remembered for pepperpots, puppeteers and a Parkfields finale. We were tantalised by the Tivi-Ale micropub, chatted to a lady ventriloquist at a bus stop and completed our collection of Netherton Tunnel ventilation shafts

- Parade of the Pepperpots -

#9 >>> which obligingly brings us to number 9 and the original 'Getting Shafted' pepperpot chase from January 2013. After investigating the Brades Locks, we somehow scrambled up the side of Netherton Tunnel's north portal - the Chairman still has nightmares about this but thankfully he didn't go plop into the canal (arguably it came in as good practice for hurdling billboards at Hamstead a couple of years later). The Secretary was fooled by a rogue 20p glued to the floor of the Hope Tavern, while the cuddly shark toy we found dangling in a Tividale alleyway led to one of the classic calendar photo opportunities.

#8 >>> also firmly among our favourites is the Christmas 2011 caper, whereby Moseley, Ladywood and Smethwick set the benchmark for the seasonal shenanigans of subsequent years. It was a very wet day but we covered plenty of pubs (the Vine in Ladywood, the Merry Maid in Highgate and several Smethwick dives) plus accounted for a couple of Birmingham's cast iron urinals. 

- The Shawbirch Glass Snatcher -

#7 >>> the most recent member of the top ten is August 2019's Wellington Afternoon which gave us a half-day helping of summertime Shropshire. We treated Dothill to a singalong rendition* of 'Goodbye-ee' by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore before stopping off at Shawbirch so that Mr D9 could swipe himself a Sunbeam receptacle (said specimen now apparently resides in Skegness). Add in a bag of Emery and Star sand alongside contrasting pub experiences vis-a-vis the Wrekin versus the Walnut and you have a recipe for serious fun. 

* Note - our finest ever karaoke is undoubtedly warbling 'Spanish Eyes' around the backstreets of Longton last September. 

#6 >>> another 2019 entrant (and one of the Secretary's finest ever pieces of pubcrawl planning) comes in the form of a Redditch Good Friday. Yes, Easter found us in 'Estate Pub Heaven' with flat roofs in abundance and a new cast of characters to tickle the Chairman's imagination - Piggott and Putin were all present and correct with even a sighting of King Kong on the way home. I still can't quite believe we actually set foot in the Woodrow!

- A repeat airing for the wondrous Woodrow -

#5 >>> Mr D9 has been allowed some wriggle room with his selections so at number 5 we find East Birmingham in general. A mainstay of the Hub Marketing calendar, we've put together a whole series of these over the years (usually involving the Old Coventry Road one way or another, and occasionally straying into North Solihull too). Highlights include discovering the Albion Vaults in Saltley, mourning the Mountfort at Kingshurst and tucking into a Bedders fish supper at Hay Mills, complete with the all-important slices of pickled onion.

#4 >>> in a similar vein, the Chairman has opted for the entire Coventry Cats and Quiffs collection just outside the top three. And I quote "its hard to choose the best one of these, they are all good with a Metro Quiff, Cardboard Quiff, Laminated Quiff and a Cloth Quiff. The trips that stick out the most are the Lieutenant Pigeon homage with the Balls Hill music wall of fame, doing three cafes in one day. Always lots of Rock N Roll songs and recently found the Coventry Market". I need say no more, except that these are typically autumnal adventures staged sometime around Halloween, hence pictures like this...

- Spooky stuff in the Nursery Tavern -

#3 >>> Mr D9 is clearly a fan of our Wolverhampton Wanderings as they slot straight in at number 3. Duster attire and battered sausages have been noted when we've toured the likes of Penn, Warstones and Bradmore, while the Moreton Arms in Fordhouses has a special place in the Chairman's affections too. Elsewhere we've homaged industrial relics like the Sunbeam factory and the former Springfield Brewery, plus who could forget our cheapest ever Discount of the Day courtesy of £1 Boondoggle in Wednesfield's Pyle Cock. 

#2 >>> as well as pubs, photos and a general air of silliness, the Hub Marketing Board do like to indulge in some detailed urban exploration. A good example of this is the Golds Hill Good Friday trip of 2016 which saw us charting the course of the former Balls Hill canal branch. To a soundtrack of Bruce Forsyth's 'I'm Backing Britain', we ventured around scrapyards and disused railway crossings before pitching up at the Beehive, a ramshackle boozer next to the old Brickhouse Lane Bridge. 

 - Silly headgear always encouraged -

#1 >>> so - drum roll please - which exemplary excursion has claimed pole position? It is none other than our very first trip, Smethwick 2011 being where it all began for the Hub Marketing Board. The combination of terraced backstreets, Black Patch Park, the Booth Street Closet and M&B heritage was an instant hit, and all these years later we still rate this one most highly. The Soho Works Tavern was our inaugural pub although there's a certain poignancy in that some of the others we did that day - the Moilliet Arms, London Works Tavern and the Falcon (with the satellite dog) - have passed into history. We hope to bring you more Hub Marketing reflections and reminiscences in due course but for now please stay safe - cheers!