Quality pub
Of all the places to find the ultimate footy pub you probably wouldn’t expect to find it in a non-descript suburban setting like New Malden, on a dead-end, nestled within hearing distance of the A3, but it is www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/25/258/Woodies/New_Malden
No this is not a paid endorsement, why the hell would anyone want to advertise on here, simply my appreciation of a place I have spent my whole drinking life looking for. Bizarrily despite only living about a mile from the pub as the crane flies (and its does around here) I don’t think I have been to it more than about 15 times! This is the outskirts of London after all and walking from my bit to New Maldon is like going into a time space continuum. But if you make the effort you are rewarded handsomely.
First impressions might put you off, it looks like a wooden hut, that because it is, a big one but still a wooden hut (ok a pavilion but come on allow a bit of poetic licence please). Stuck on the wooden panel outside walls are a few, discreet metal advertising signs, 50’s style, for the mainstay regional beers of the south (which as we all know can’t hold a light to the northern ones). You enter through doors that look like they have been recycled from a beach hut in Brighton and your first impression is the place has no windows as it darkens almost like when you enter a cave. There are a couple of reasons for this, one I will come to shortly, the other is the lack of lights.
After adjusting your eyes the first thing you notice is the bar and usually about 6 decent real ales, mostly from small brewers but with some well known stuff. The beer is always excellent, it is poured correctly, presented correctly and for London reasonably priced. Now i have a northern chippiness when it comes to heads on beer, I like to have one. Most places can’t do it without a sparkler (and most pubs around here haven’t a clue what one is) but at Woodies they manage to pull beer with a decent head without one. Joy it is to see it.
Having taken your drink you can sit down. It is at this point you suddenly realise why this is the perfect footy pub. Situated directly to the left of the door is a screen, permanently on Sky Sports. The dark interior really gives the screen a presence you could never get in frigging sports bars! You then notice the second reason why its so dark, the walls and ceilings are covered in programmes and sports memorabilia, mostly Wimbledon, Crystal Palace and Spurs related (which is weird because New Maldon is Fulham and Chelsea territory). Their are literally thousands of bits of paper stuck, pinned, hanging or just placed throughout the pub. Its great, you get a real sense of love for sport.
Now a pub like that is good enough, without then finding out they do food, proper food, cooked in front of you, served from a counter, cheap as chips! The kids are bored, their is a setting area outside, looking on to sports fields (shame Kings College London don’t allow open access to their spill over pitches but that’s snobby universities for you). It doesn’t get much better, or does it, what is that you say, its beer festival weekend as we speak, marvellous.
As a final aside, the geography of this part of London means that Woodies is only about a mile and a bit from Kingsmeadow, home of Kingstonian and AFC Wimbledon, unfortunately a railway line runs between the two. However as luck would have it there is a tunnel under that railway line on route (although everyone over 5ft 6inches will have to duck down a little and its single file). Before my life is over I hope to escort a well lubricated bunch of Leeds fans through that short-cut the first time we play one of those two clubs in a cup-tie!
