Bread & Circuses: Sport at The Blue Stoops

It must be confessed that we are uncharacteristically half-hearted about showing sports at The Blue Stoops.

It's not that, as individuals, we don't love the beautiful games. However, the pub is small and has a cornucopia of other obsessions (Madeira, anyone?) some of which do not overlap as well as they might with the joys of televised sport.

That said, we do show Association Football (when England are playing) and some Lawn Tennis on a small-ish screen with no sound. Why even do this? Our theory is that there are some parties who like to keep an eye on the game, while hanging out with others who couldn't care less. The Stoops may be the ultimate home for latter-day Juvenals who enjoy the odd circus but – like the leader of His Majesty’s Opposition – will not pretend to want to stay up all night watching our brave lads battle it out on the other side of the world.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, all England World Cup games and Fery matches – and the Wimbledon final – will be shown at the pub, without sound. Frothing pints of hand-pulled Allsopp’s ales and magnums (magna?) of ice-cold rosè await.

Sport Quote

 "It seems a very long time, since we cared enough to sell our vote. Now the populus has cast off even those cares…for this once great people, which handed out military command, high office, legions, and everything else, now limits its longings to two things only: bread and circuses."

 ...iam pridem, ex quosuffragia nulli 

vendimus, effudit curas; namqui dabat olim 

imperium, fasces, legiones,omnia, nunc se 

continet atque duas tantumres anxius optat, 

panem et circenses.

 Juvenal 130 BC