A piece of the old county: farewell to the Old Red Lion Theatre | OneFootball

Sitting on a busy London street sits a pub. Upon the Angel, Islington, up and across to the left from Liverpool Street on the Northern Line, through Old Street and the ghost of the old City Road station, as one squeezed through the narrow pavement, as those in a hurry danced this way and that. It is a city pub. That is to literally say, the opposite of a country pub, but also to figuratively say that it is a pub that had been built, and continues to operate, in the London Style of Pub in which anyone who had spent any long period. Squarely shaped, an extraordinary facade to anyone who looked up, a doorstep straight onto the road, and as old as the works of Shakespeare.

Ah yes, Shakespeare. If you will forgive the somewhat obvious connection, it is apt to mention Shakespeare here when one considers that this pub is called the Old Red Lion Theatre and Pub. It is a theatre. And a pub. Both separate and both intertwined.

The idea of a theatre pub itself seems somewhat Norwichian in its execution. While the famously over-pubbed city doesn’t itself have a theatre pub (like the ORL at least), it is something that would certainly have suited a city that has long fused the arts (and, somewhat paradoxically, its religion) with its drinking establishments. But what iss the relevance of Norwich here? In this part of central London?

Well, the Old Red Lion Theatre and Pub had a third life, a third vocation if you will, that was not in its name or listed in most catalogued descriptions.

On a very cold November Sunday, around lunchtime, a tall, distinctively featured and young man walks through the doors into the Old Red Lion. He stops in his tracks as he sees the crowd before him. Confused, he jostles his way to the bar and asks, rather sheepishly, “Are you going to have the Arsenal game on?”.

“Yes,” is the reply from behind the bar as several patrons, some in yellow shirts or wearing green and yellow bar scarves, eye the interloper with amusement and genuine apology. “Though, I’d say instead that we are going to have the Norwich game on.”

Once again the man looks about the pub, looks back to the man behind the bar, points down to the ground and says, “This is an Arsenal pub isn’t it?” We are, after all, at 418 St John Street, Islington, EC1V 4NJ. The Emirates Stadium is under a mile and a half from here.

“No,” says the barman, shaking his head, a large yellow and green flag tacked to the wall behind him above the lines of spirit bottles. “This is a Norwich pub.”

The tall man, the Arsenal fan, takes one last confused look about the place, scratches his head and jostles his way back out into the cold London air. Back at the bar, no one says anything except for the one woman ordering a Woodforde’s Wherry and a vodka and tonic. Over on the big screen, there’s a fanfare of introduction to Sky Sports’ Super Sunday coverage and the opening from the presenter proclaiming the kick off of the opening match starting soon – Norwich City v Arsenal.

The Old Red Lion was, indeed, a Norwich pub. A small exclave of Norfolk located in the heart of London, the headquarters of the Capital Canaries supporters’ club for decades and a place where screenings of Norwich City matches could be watched in an atmosphere that could only be matched (and sometimes exceeded) by that of Carrow Road itself.

On another November Sunday, this time almost exactly a year previous, a young, slightly overweight and bespectacled man in a parka jacket and a Norwich scarf, walks along the City Road in the freezing cold. He is nervous. Extremely nervous. In fact, somewhat too nervous really for what is an obviously trifle thing of a football match. Indeed, he admonishes himself, he is feeling more nervous than he had done when he first stepped through the doors of his university accommodation less than 12 months before. How daft.

But the nerves do not subside on his walk to the pub and, naturally always quite anxious about stepping over any threshold, he hovers outside the door for a short while until he spots on a chalkboard the confirmation that he, for some pretence, requires to enter: “Live Football: Norwich City v Ipswich Town”.

And it is there, in that pub as well as on the frozen turf at Carrow Road miles away, that a legend is born. As Grant Holt, the tyre fitter from Carlisle, scores three goals against the scum. And Wesley scores the other one. Throats roar, pints are spilled and, I, looking every inch the nervous 20-year-old that I am, realise that I’ve found a place in the most anonymous of cities that is mine. It is my pub.

“He scored three goals against the scum!” reverberates around this old pub. This old theatre. This piece of the old county. For many years after. And I am there for many of the times it is rolled out. When we beat Manchester United at home and I walk back along the City Road, rather piddled, speaking to my dad on the phone in disbelief. When Grant Holt scores an equaliser against Liverpool in front of the Kop at Anfield and some of my pint ends up on the ceiling (sorry about that). When an absolutely packed house (of Norwich fans only, of course) roars home a dramatic victory against Arsenal before the rehearsals of the play that is being put on upstairs have even finished.

The Old Red Lion on game day was not especially comfortable. It wasn’t that easy to even see the TV screen or the giant screen properly. On midweek games, when Norfolkites had perhaps worked in the City all day to come to the pub in the evening, it got extremely busy to the point of people looking in through the door. But if there was such a thing as the “Norwich City Rough Guide” then this would have been a top hidden gem location. A place that all Norwich City fans should have experienced at least once, and preferably witnessed a big victory against Ipswich.

Sadly, you may have noticed that I am using the past tense here, for this year the pub has been sold. The Norwich supporting landlord needs to move on. No one’s fault, but just one of those things.*

Unfortunately for any weary fellow travellers, the new owners are not planning on showing live sport and, as a result, the Capital Canaries have had to decamp to new digs. A new era, yes, but anyone who visited the ORL, will not forget the joy, the songs and the beer dripping from the ceiling.

*In a rare example of things actually maybe working out for a pub and arts venue, the sale of the ORL has seen the bar staff and the theatre staff transfer with the sale. This is, of course, undoubtedly a good thing. With every building and piece of land in London seemingly on the table at the world’s most expensive jumble sale, the fact that it was not turned into luxury flats iss something of a miracle.