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Home > London >
SE11 > The Cricketers
The Cricketers
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Picture source: Stephen
Harris |
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The Cricketers was situated at 17 Kennington
Oval.
Standing alongside the Oval Cricket Ground, this pub was as well known as a
live music venue as for its cricketing connections. Previously
known as The Clayton Arms. |
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I played a gig at The Cricketers, on bass, my only London gig, with a
Country & Western band called "Stevie Loss & Second Time Around", featuring
two fine singers, back in Autumn 1990. Later during that tour I had time to
see the Grateful Dead's last British performance on 1 November at Wembley
Arena. God I was homesick. My first and last tour away from home. |
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Steve Rogers (October 2011) |
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I used to run gigs at The Cricketers, Kennington Oval, SE11
from 1984 until it was forced to be sold to Inntrepeneur Ltd in September
1990. That was really the end of the pub as a live music venue, although a
bunch of bikers with no experience tried to carry on, then a former Jamaican
police sergeant, followed by a period as an empty Portuguese restaurant. A fuller story can be found on my website : jimdriver.com |
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Jim Driver (March 2017) |
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I worked for a while as a barmaid in The
Cricketers, around winter 1979/80. The location was atmospheric - the pub
dwarfed by the gas storage facilities. I remember Sultans of Swing on the
jukebox and the crowded Sunday lunchtimes with trad jazz; the smell of beer,
sweat and cigarettes; big glass dishes of seafood on the bar which of course
was not for me to sample. I was a rubbish barmaid, my heart wasn’t in it. I
once accidentally served 6 bottles of expensive Pils with a top of
peppermint instead of lime. I got the sack - the only time it ever happened
to me - for not smiling enough or chatting up the regulars. And rightly so.
It was not the happiest of times for me - nothing to do with the pub - but I
remember this place very well and I'm sorry to learn of its fate. If anyone
remembers a gloomy kid in red dungarees . . . sorry about the peppermint!
(But you could’ve given it a chance?) |
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Irene Cowper (March 2024) |
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Contacts |
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