A 55-year-long pub crawl has just inched past its 12,000th pub.
Since 1969, dad-of-one Rob Cocker, 73, has made it his mission to sample as many of Britain’s boozers as possible. He got bored of repeatedly going to his Staffordshire local in Stoke-on-Trent.
Aged 18, he pledged to “see what else was out there” and set off on his journey to drink in as many watering holes as he could, using all manner of strange transport methods in the name of “a quick half” at some of the country’s more remote and hard to find boozers.
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The ale fan has been known to knock off as many as 14 pubs in a single trip, a technique that has seen him confidently grace past number 12,000 on his visit to Costello’s Bar in Warrington, Cheshire.
(Image: William Lailey / SWNS)
Along the way there have been a number of boxes checked off. Pint in every city? Completed it. Every pub within 20 miles of where he lives? No problem.
Along the way, the retired payroll officer also checked off 471 Wetherspoons and has knocked off 1,400 spots in London.
Lynn, 68, his wife of 37 years, is understood to be fully in support of her man’s quest – which is just as well.
(Image: William Lailey / SWNS)
He explained: “It all started when I got a bit bored of visiting the same pub each weekend from when I was 18 and thought I’d see what else was out there.
“I just began travelling a bit further out and trying the different pubs in the area and then by 1971 I was making a note of them all on the back of a fag packet.
“It just spiralled from there and I began keeping diaries as I kept going further afield. I tied it into going to watch Stoke City FC play and still do so today.
“We’ve got Sheffield United this weekend and I’ve got seven new pubs in Sheffield I’m going to try next.
“I started getting the CAMRA Guide around 1980 which I follow religiously and going to the pubs in there.
“I have been to 1,800 CAMRA pubs but there’s around 4,500 in there, so I’ve done around 40%.
“It will be impossible to do every pub in Britain but I’ve done what I can. People can’t believe it when I tell them what I’m doing.”
It’s taken him all over the country and met characters along the way. He added: “There were two young ladies in a Newcastle bar who asked me what I was doing when I began taking notes about the ale I was drinking.
(Image: William Lailey / SWNS)
“They didn’t believe me, so I said ‘Google me’ and then they were screaming in the pub ‘Oh my God, this bloke has been to 10,000 pubs.’
“My son jokes that I’m famous for being a p**shead. But if I’m doing 10 pubs during a trip, I’ll make sure I’ll only have a half.
“I’ve just had my most recent health check and it all came back as clear. It’s a lot of ale but I don’t go over the top.
“I had to catch eight trains recently when I went to Melton Mowbray, Stamford, Grantham and Nottingham.
(Image: William Lailey / SWNS)
“You don’t want to be sozzled when you’re trying to catch eight trains home. But I’ve been known to do eight to 14 pubs in one go.”
A number of Wetherspoons have tumbled too. He said: “I’ve been to 471 Wetherspoon’s too without trying to do Wetherspoon’s pubs.
“They get a bad reputation sometimes but some of them are absolutely incredible inside and really historic buildings.
“The Imperial in Exeter springs to mind and there’s one in Tewkesbury, which is still used as an opera house.
“The wife is a CAMRA member too so comes with me to a lot of them, so fortunately she’s on board with it all.
(Image: William Lailey / SWNS)
“We’ll go on a holiday and I’ll incorporate in as many pubs as I can. We went on a historical trip around Chester the other week and I managed to find and cross off around eight more pubs.
“I don’t count the ones abroad though – as they are never proper pubs, more like bars. But I’ve been to 84 countries too.
“I’ve also done hundreds across Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland – from Oban, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, plus Jersey and the Isle of Man too.
“I prefer the traditional-style local boozers but there’s some really good microbreweries out there too these days.
“And it’s always a real ale I’ll have, never a lager, that’s just scraping the barrel.”
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