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This Rough pub's a real diamond



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Published Date: 13 October 2008
TO Fagan's in Broad Lane, Sheffield, for a half of Moonshine and to tell landlord Tom Boulding that his hostelry is in the new Rough Pub Guide.
There is a slight pause and the Diary rushes to explain that it's not rough as in 'you'll get a glass in your face if you look at my bird' but rough as in Rough Guide to Tuscany or whatever.

Tom, who has been behind the bar for 23 years, relaxes.

Fagan's, says the guide, has been "a local fixture since the late 19th century, it's provided more community service than Naomi Campbell."

Then, waxing lyrical, it adds: "Dimly-lit in mid afternoon Fagan's possesses a Marie Celeste-like stillness."

Just then a customer emerges from wood panelled and green banquetted bar and disappears overboard in Broad Lane.

"It's a very old style pub, no juke box, no pool table. We run it to the old landlord's dictum of I'll treat you as a gentleman until you prove otherwise," says Tom, aged, 58, a big man in a red cardigan.

There may not be a juke box but there is a music most nights except when there's a quiz.

Fagan's is as advertised on BBC because Jools Holland was taken there by regular Richard Hawley and gave it a plug on Later With Jools,

Both their photos are on the walls because they've played and sung in the pub but not Jarvis Cocker's. "He's been but not sung," says Tom.

That apart, the pub doesn't go out of its way to advertise its famous customers. "They like the fact they're not fawned over," says Tom.

The Rough Guide celebrates 50 Great British Boozers which haven't been mucked around and is the solitary mention in our area.

As well as the decor, the man behind the bar is also an important factor.

At this moment Tom's wife Barbara comes into the bar and reads from the foreword: "The landlords that time forgot." She gives him a look.

The pub is named after Joe Fagan, a Bomber Command pilot, who ran the place for 38 years. It's just got a new sign which shows a photo of Joe against a bomber.

The old one rotted and fell off and it's taken a year to replace.

There's a long and complicated story as to why the sign over the door says, in Japanese, "We install and service hangovers."

It's surprising how many of the pub's customers can actually translate it, says Tom.

The guide unkindly describes the exterior of Fagan's as "an asphalt coloured bunker next to a building site" and you couldn't really argue.

Luckily it does not the mistake of calling Fagan's, despite the name and the music, an Irish pub.

"It's got an Irish tradition because this area once housed immigrants such as the Irish, Jews and Italians and there are Irish musicians. But this is not a place for Plastic Paddies," says Tom.

The Rough Pub Guide by Paul Moody and Robin Turner is published by Orion at £9.99.




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The full article contains 562 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 13 October 2008 7:41 AM
  • Source: Sheffield Star
  • Location: Sheffield
 
 

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