Corey’s Sports Bar

 Well this is a tricky one to write, a few days before I’d decided to visit Corey’s Sports Bar for blogging purposes I discovered that very surprisingly the pub is due to close for good less than a week after my visit. When I say surprisingly I genuinely mean that, this is a bustling town centre venue that always seemed busy both from a food and a drink perspective. The reason given is pressures on staffing, supplies and rising costs experienced in recent months. Sadly like many other venues it couldn’t survive the impact that the pandemic has had on the hospitality industry. 

As sad as this is, and with apologies for my poor taste, this post is more in a Jim Bowen on Bullseye stylee ‘come and look at what you could’ve won’ !!

Back in the day Corey’s used to be a cinema. The Palace cinema opened in 1976 with cinema goers on opening night enjoying seeing John Alderton shoving his hand up a cow’s backside in It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet. 

Sadly progress meant that with the opening of a 10 screen multiplex nearby 15 years later the cinema went the same way as the pub is now. The venue opened as a large pub called Casa some time later but this later morphed into Corey’s Sports Bar. 

Okay it’s cask ale offering was (how sad, I’m speaking in past tense) about as appealing as a day spent as James Herriot (the vet with the long arm not the ex goalkeeper) but I’m not the target market for this pub even though I see myself as a trendy young buck !! Proof of this is that the cask pump (it was the uninspiring Doombar) was replaced by a swanky looking Corona pump so youngsters can drift off over a pint of this popular beer imagining they are in a Mexican holiday resort rather than accepting the reality that they in Tamworth opposite Steve’s fish bar !! 

The clue is in the title that this is the place in Tamworth to watch televised sport. On my most recent visit I was able to view 14 screens, and no you can’t ask if they can turn over so you can watch Love Island !! The place is packed to capacity for big boxing bouts and pints get thrown in the air when England score a goal during a major tournament. Traditionally I watch the FA Cup final in Corey’s though I will confess that it is the last port of call after visiting a few hostelries on route. I used to know all the FA cup finalists year on year nowadays, due to preloading before my visit to Corey’s, I’d struggle to remember what colour they were playing in if you asked me the next day !! 

The pub has a mezzanine floor that, as well as being home to a pool table, is also the place when the unruly young people of Tamworth drop their pints onto the people below when the bouncers aren’t looking !! 

This isn’t the place for those with Pringle bladders (you know, once you pop you can’t stop) because the upstairs toilet is so far away that I’m not even sure that it’s in Staffordshire!! 

It’s such a shame to see the back of this place. Thanks for the memories Corey’s.