5th December 2007
Beards and beer
The Champion of the Thames is the pub that all pubs want to be when they grow up. Small, dark, and full of genial men in beards and sandals, it serves excellent beer to a wide range of punters and also eggs. And veg, on a Sunday. Once every couple of months there is, bizarrely, the occasional cooking contest - most recently chocolate cake - and the pub now has its own facebook group, despite being largely populated by regulars who look like they wouldn't recognise a computer if it trotted up and barked at them. Presided over by the lovely Catherine (who used to be in training to be a methodist minister) and her rather more rounded husband Lawrence (who used to be a bookie), the Champ is much loved by its many regulars, and it is the ultimate regulars pub. It no longer serves food, except for the various clubs that base themselves at the pub, but the landlord has been known to send out for an entire three course meal from the Turkish restaurant down the road.