Visit to Winter Beer Festival at Grays Athletic Football Club
On 17th January 2004 a large group of members of Kingston SPBW (the vice chairman and the social secretary) journeyed to deepest Essex to experience this superb event, and watch Grays play Kingstonian FC.
South West Trains did its best with engineering works into Waterloo, but then the Jubilee Line to West Ham and mainline train to Grays ran smoothly. On the way we passed many of the sights of the East such as Rainham Marshes, Lakeside Shopping Centre and the Dartford Bridge.
Once in Grays, which was not as grim as might be imagined, we soon found the clubhouse which was full of local football fans and people wearing West Ham United shirts.
The clubhouse normally has four hand pumps with regular and guest beers, and is the only football clubhouse in the Good Beer Guide. We got ourselves a pint and Mike bumped in to the manager and secretary of Kingstonian to have a chat about the current perilous state of the club. Besides the main bar, one end of the clubhouse was set up with racking to hold around 40 beers and ciders, together with bottled Belgian beers. The festival is a winter beer festival name after the time of year rather than the type of beers offered, and there was a superb range of products - some well known and others we had not seen before. Man Utd. v Wolves was showing on the TV and there was a massive cheer when Wolves scored.
After a few more beers and some rolls it was time to venture out into the cold and watch some real football - Ryman League Premier Division.
The players came on to the pitch and the smell of liniment wafted in to the crowd (official attendance 365). As it got colder and rained a little two local supporters said to each other "Cold isn't it - That'll be the weather."
During the second half the only goal of the game came when Grays were awarded a dubious penalty, even the home fans were surprised.
Then the final whistle blew and back to the beer. More football on the TV showed West Ham v Sheffield Utd. And of course a massive cheer when West Ham scored.
We bumped in to a group of Kingston CAMRA who were visiting the festival but had not ventured out to watch their local team, however they confirmed it was worth travelling all that way.
A few more beers and then it was time for the train back to London, on the way to the station we stopped off at the chippy for a massive portion of pie and chips, and then had a nice table to eat it off on the train back.
All in all a brilliant day (despite K's losing 1-0) a great club well worth visiting anyway and a superb festival.