I FELT it appropriate this week to review one of the locality’s many fine working men’s clubs – or do they call them sports and social clubs nowadays?

Anyway, it’s been a while since I descended upon one such drinking establishment.

I’ve visited Sydney Street on a couple of previous occasions – and have always found it a most welcoming and friendly social club. So how would it fare this time round?

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For my latest foray into Accrington, I had two of my beery comrades in tow, namely, Bob Fletcher and Arthur Brydges. They are most proficient at guiding me towards the bar – and even better at pointing out what beverage they wish to partake in.

It’s quite a sizeable, open-plan room. One half is partitioned off to allow members a little privacy to demonstrate their ‘skills’ on the full size snooker table.

The remaining area is devoted to comfort and relaxation for the patrons with fixed, soft upholstered bench seating, around the perimeter. A range of comfy chairs is also provided, in addition to a widescreen TV, pool table and darts board.

We were met by club manageress, Michelle, a most cheerful and affable host. She has worked at Sydney Street for 18 years.

“It’s a family affair.” she said. “My dad is the club steward and mum is very much involved too with club catering responsibilities.”

It was getting quite busy when we visited with many of the customers taking their favoured places for Tuesday’s ‘Big Sid’s Quiz’ at 9pm.

Entertainment is paramount at Sydney Street with dominoes on Monday, a darts evening on Wednesday and the pool and snooker takes centre stage on Thursday. Every Saturday there is live entertainment on offer to members and their guests.

There was some lively banter being exchanged at the lengthy L-shaped bar and Bob was definitely coming off second best, in his friendly verbal joust with staff member, Belinda.

Three cask ales were on offer with John Smith’s, a permanent fixture (£2.40) and the two rotating beers. At the time of our brief sojourn, they were Caledonian’s Deuchars IPA (£2.40) and Worsthorne Brewery’s Colliers Clog (£2.60).

So which to sample? It was a no-brainer for me.

Colliers Clog is always a delightful drop that I very much look forward to. It’s a strong, smooth pale ale which offers excellent citrus flavour combined with a subtle hop bitterness. At 5.5%, it also offers plenty of ‘clog’!

It’s one of many tasty tipples from the Burnley-based, award-winning brewer.

From the outset I knew that once again I would enjoy my visit to this friendly, unpretentious and homely environment.

It embodies all the favourable characteristics of our much loved social and sports clubs at the heart of the community.

Sydney Street Working Men’s Club – it’s a premier Accrington social hub, no argument.