Pubs Are Tripling Their Beer Reserves Ahead of Tomorrow's Match

Pints rain down over celebrating punters. Harry Maguire's doing that sort of tormented scream he does after he's scored a goal, fists aloft, running towards the crowd. The entire pub has broken out into "It's Coming Home", for the 10,000th time this summer.

This now-familiar scene may well reincarnate in some form on Wednesday night during England’s first World Cup semi-final since 1990. And what do you do once you've hurled an almost full beer over a stranger? You buy another. In anticipation, pubs are variously doubling and tripling their beer reserves ahead of England's crunch match with Croatia.

"We've tripled the amount of booze we have in stock," says Ross Johnson, the assistant manager at The Miller in south-east London, explaining how people are drinking more and more as the tournament progresses, with Peroni, Corona and the Czech beer Kozel all popular choices. "It certainly has been good for business, although it's often rather quiet in the pub the day after an England game, and people are tending to stay home the night before too."

This morning, the British Beer and Pub Association predicted that home fans will drink 10 million extra pints during tomorrow evening's game, and recently estimated that more than 30 million extra pints have already been drunk in a football-fuelled thirst that led the Daily Star to claim Britain's pubs had run dry after the "steamy six goal romp" against Panama.

Understandably, these pubs aren't going to make the same mistake twice.

On Tyneside, owner Norman Scott has been decking out his pub with 30 new St George's flags each day, with the Robin Beer House and Eatery now sporting around 1,000 pieces of red and white fabric. "We would've taken them down had England been knocked out," says Clare McFall, supervisor at the pub, which is currently selling three times as much booze as usual. "We've been putting on more as it's progressed."

"I think Norman just got a bit carried away with the football," she adds. "He likes to do the World Cup in full, although some would say it's a bit over the top."

On Merseyside, the pubs have been similarly packed to the rafters. The Hope & Anchor, a student bar in Liverpool where a pint of Carling costs £3.30, have doubled their stock of booze ahead of England's first World Cup semi-final for 28 years.

"People don’t throw as much beer around when England play," muses the manager. "There's singing, but not nearly as much as when Liverpool are on."

Outside the centre of the city, the Fly in the Loaf's supervisor, Joe Lenden, tells me that football watchers at his pub have been drinking five to six pints on average during each 90 minutes of England ecstasy. They've also bought in double the normal amount of beer, with 80 barrels of lager primed for Wednesday night

Thirty-five miles west, in Manchester, the city's biggest bars are gearing up for what could be the most watched sporting event in British history by, you guessed it, stocking up on booze.

One, The Second City, is hiring more staff to stop cheapskates outside from watching the game through the windows.

Nearby, alcohol-charged impromptu football games have been spontaneously kicking off outside Tib St Tavern in the northern quarter, and although the bar isn't encouraging them, they say it's "great to see everyone in good spirits".

Despite the overall good will, police chiefs warned against a repeat of the "worrying level of mostly alcohol-related disorder" that followed Saturday's quarter final with Sweden, stretching forces' resources as 387 incidents led to 70 arrests.

Just as the police are making contingency plans for the inevitably beer-soaked aftermath, pubs across the UK are hiring extra security staff, buying up thousands of plastic cups and working out which punters to bar.

At The Black Swan, in Ockham, Surrey, where part of the 1981 horror-com An American Werewolf in London was filmed, they have hired no less than six security guards to "manage" guests ahead of Wednesday's game. They’ve been successful at keeping the peace so far, though, unlike The Command House in Chatham, Kent, where a mass brawl broke out during the last 16 tie against Colombia.

Footage posted on social media, and picked up by The Sun, showed two groups of men facing off before a bare-chested guy was punched in the chin. This prompted the pub to stop showing the games, saying it's more hassle than it's worth. "It just causes too much trouble," a member of the bar staff told me. "People get rowdy and they throw their beer glasses. Most parts of Chatham have stopped showing the games now. It's a joke, but people don't care really."

Some, however, aren't getting swept up in football fever whatsoever. In leafy Beaconsfield, one of the pubs claiming to be be the country's – the 900-year old Royal Standard – doesn't have a television, and they're not getting one in, so it's probably going to be "pretty quiet" come tomorrow night.

"It's not the kind of place you'd have people standing at the bar," says a bar-woman. "It's just not the vibe we're looking for."

I'll just have a pint then, please.

@matthabusby

See here for more coverage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.