Three Horseshoes, Fazeley

 My gaze was well and truly averted from the mouth of the proverbial gift horse when I discovered that my better half had a half an hour appointment just outside Fazeley on a Sunday lunchtime and she was driving. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d give me a lift to The Three Horseshoes is there?’ I pleaded giving her my best puppy dog eyes. Mercifully she agreed to my cheeky request so I donned my Sunday best ahead of the four mile journey courtesy of my very own Sunday Girl. 

The pub is situated down a side street and is a stone’s throw away from the legendary Fazeley Fish Bar. Why legendary? I hear you say, well, it was recently visited by a former Birmingham City player/manager. Yes, bizarrely Lee Bowyer called in for mini fish and chips. I can almost hear the obligatory puns about Blues being battered !! 

I was a bit apprehensive going in as, somewhat embarrassingly, this was a cherry popping moment and I’d heard that it can get a bit lively however my first visit to this pub got off to a great start, I heard a Slade song ending as I opened the door followed by a Cream song starting whilst I was waiting at the bar. 

The love at first sight feelings for the place continued when I was poured my first pint, what a thing of beauty it was…

I found a seat out of harm’s way and surveyed the scene..

…this readers, is a proper pub !! There was an alcove of old men having the craic (as they say in Ireland), there were cobs (bread rolls to the unsophisticated) on the bar and the electrical devices were last seen on Tomorrow’s World in 1967…

….I may avoid the place at Christmas just in case the person who is responsible for the mayhem around the wiring and cables is also doing the festive lighting!! 

I also noticed that, unlike our friends from across the Expressway, the last 26 years have not seen a nil return in the trophy cabinet at The Three Horseshoes, the cleaner must presumably be well stocked in Brasso and not have a liking for spirits as somewhat bizarrely in amongst the honours were three bottles of malt whiskey !!

The relative calm of the place was shattered when one of the pub’s characters bounded up to the bar and starting sharing his pearls of wisdom with the barmaid. It transpired that he had treated her to her first taste of cockles the night before….stop sniggering at the back of class !! ‘I didn’t like them, they tasted of vinegar’ she said unimpressed by the whole experience, ‘That’s cos I soaked em in vinegar before I gave them to you’ he retorted suitably impressed with his response. I sensed this was gonna be a long thirty minutes !! 

In a move seemingly to shake off the male Fazeley version of Molly Malone the barmaid passed him a remote control which gave him the ability to make free of charge selections from the pub’s jukebox, I sensed my classic rock Sunday lunchtime session was to be short lived, how right I was !! Choice number one 21 Reasons by Nathan Dawe, next up Mabel’s Don’t Call Me Up. Now, just in case you are wondering how I’m familiar with these musical crimes I will confess I somehow deciphered a few lyrics and did a Google search. I sense my younger readers are disappointed by this revelation!! 

Hope of a return to 1970’s rock improved when I saw a lady visit the loo, she was rocking the double denim look, hopefully she could wrestle the remote off the fish man, that said I wasn’t sure whether Wrangler x 2 was in homage to Quo or Shaky !! 

I then had bad news…my other half’s appointment had finished 15 minutes early followed by good news she told me she was popping to the shops so I had time for another pint. What a star !! I ordered my drink that quickly I’m sure I said the order as one word, so not only did she not like vinegary fish food the barmaid could not also decipher pintofBassplease from the excited newcomer !! 

For completeness of this post I took a quick peak into the pub beer garden which looked pretty good…

….however I didn’t linger just in case Double Denim had put Rocking All Over The World on the jukebox!!

Some misbehaviour followed though surprisingly the culprit was one of our canine friends. The pub is dog friendly and when one man and his dog walked in the petulant pooch obviously forget his manners, he ran straight up to the landlady and put both paws on her chest !! I can hear all my female readers saying ‘Typical bloke’ !! 

Now I’m not one to judge people or adopt a stereotypical view….however a bloke comes in, heavily tattooed everywhere, vest and shorts and I immediately know that he’s not going to order an orange and passion fruit J20. Sure enough ‘Pint of Stella love’ was the unsurprising request. 

I was really enjoying the pub but realised my stay was a short one and the coup de grace occurred when a father and son came in, sat near me and struck up a conversation with the landlady who they obviously knew. Son boasted of a time he left work on a Thursday turned his mobile off so nobody could contact him, went to Ayia Napa for the weekend then turned his phone back on when he was in work on Monday morning. Dad shook his head and said ‘You went to Ayia Napa, I went to Winson Green’ !! Thankfully my lift arrived shortly after however not before the fisherman’s friend went up to the jukebox and put on ‘If you Leave me Now’ by Chicago…I can only imagine it was a mistake !! 

I could almost hear the strains of ‘Ooh-ooh-ho, no Baby please don’t go’ being sung as I left !!