The Avenue, Gloucester

The cathedral city of Gloucester has been one of my more regular weekend-break and holiday destinations for the best part of 30 years. Sometimes for the rugby at Kingsholm stadium, other times just a jumping-off point for cider and cycling holidays on the Vale of Belvoir. Whatever the reason, I've always made time to explore the plentiful pubs of the town.

Over the years I've stayed at a number of boltholes in the city, some good, some not so good, but recently I've settled on a quiet well-run B&B on the Cheltenham side of town that's not too far from my current favourite pub, the Pelican Inn, a Wye Valley Brewery alehouse with a great reputation for beer, particularly during the annual Summer beer festival. The drinking in the city has certainly improved since those rugby weekends, the Gloucester Brewery tap on the restored Docks being a particular favourite of mine, but more generally there's a better range of tastes available than the predominantly malty-sweet Cotswold ales that seemed to dominate the pubs on earlier visits.

Of course nowadays I'm much more aware of Gloucesters long history of competitive Skittles play, a tradition that continues to thrive in the area, albeit you won't see much evidence of the game in the very centre of town. So on my most recent trip to Gloucester I was keen to venture out into the suburbs and seek out a skittles venue or two, The Avenue to the south of the city looking a likely contender and one of only a few that I'd never been to before.

Now chance encounters are the stock-in-trade of roving pubgoers like myself, and it was whilst breakfasting at my newfound accommodation that I spotted the impressive piece of silverware seen here, the Gloucester City Skittles League Members Trophy dating from 1973.

By chance it turned out that the chap cooking my breakfast is a key member of the Beaufort Beavers Skittles Club, a long-standing home team at the aforementioned Avenue pub on the other side of town. This of course led to a lengthy discussion about all-things skittles and beer, and needless to say helped settle the issue of which pub to visit later that day.

The Avenue is a bit of a walk out from the town centre, which explains why it was an entirely new pub to me. Originally a substantial licensed hotel, probably built by the old Stroud Brewery to take advantage of commercial traffic on the busy Bristol Road. The pub is now a tidy residential community local at the southern edge of Gloucesters urban sprawl.

Thoroughly refurbished by the current owners Marston's, its two room layout, separated by a bar servery and the original tile-floored entrance (left), remains thankfully intact. This means the smaller left-hand room can continue to play its traditional role as a 'Games Bar' with Dartboard and Pool Table, leaving the slightly larger right-hand room free for the all-important food trade that pubs like The Avenue rely on.

The typically substantial Skittle Alley can be found at the rear of the pub in what appears to have been a separate brick-built building at one time (right), now connected to the pub via a long corridor. In fact it's a twin alley, a useful number given that the format for league matches in the Gloucester City League requires that teams are split in two, the match played in two halves.

The alley is home to several mens and ladies teams, including of course the Beaufort Beavers Skittle Club who've been resident at The Avenue for over 30 years now.

Those that may not be entirely familiar with the game of skittles, as it's played in the South-West of England, may wonder what the above structure is doing in the middle of the two alleys. In fact it's a 'refuge' for the Sticker-up!

In most skittles leagues I've come across, the job of re-setting the pins after the three balls (or Cheeses) have been delivered falls to a pair of nominated players from the opposing team, and during a match it's usual for all players to eventually take a turn in what's known as the 'wood yard'. In contrast, it's the tradition in the South-West for a dedicated 'Sticker' or 'Sticker-up' to re-set the pins throughout the match, and this job usually falls to a younger local lad or girl, often a relative of one of the home team members, though the Gloucester League stipulate he or she must be 16 or over. Standing around at the business-end of a skittle alley dodging heavy Lignum Vitae skittles balls could be a risky business, hence there's usually some kind of refuge for the Stickers as seen here.

Stickers are usually reimbursed for their time and efforts with a small fee collected from the players, making it quite a sought-after job for some, and many leagues have a dedicated competition for these 'Stickers' toward the end of the season. It's also the case that these younger players often get a taste for the highly social and keenly competitive nature of the game, and eventually graduate to playing in the senior teams themselves. This crucial aspect of the game is perhaps one of the reasons that skittles in the West remains popular and relatively well-supported, where other traditional pub games around the country are struggling for support.