Couple attempting to visit all of Britain's 60,000 pubs with a drink in each rock up in Doncaster
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Nottinghamshire-based Dale Harvey, 37, and his wife-to-be Holly Booth, 31, set out in March last year and reckon they will have to visit more than 60,000 boozers the length and breadth of the British Isles to complete their challenge – spending more than £15,000 so far and sometimes visiting 23 pubs a day.
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Hide AdThe pair have an alcoholic drink in each and on Saturday hit Doncaster, ticking off another 14 bars, taking their tally to more than 1,700.
The couple, who share details of their journey on their Facebook page HERE dropped in at a string of popular city centre bars - and here’s their verdict.
“After some deliberation about whether getting a Doncaster hotel for the night and trying to get the whole town done in a night or just heading home first and jumping on a train, we opted for the train, which did mean we'd be on a bit of a stricter time frame but Doncaster was always gonna need more than one visit anyway.
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Hide Ad“We rolled into sunny 'Donny' as the locals call it and made a beeline for the first pub on our list The Staff Of Life which is situated in some odd kind of semi occupied shopping precinct and quite honestly, from the outside, it doesn't look much.
"However, what do we always say? Don't judge a pub by it's exterior or surroundings, because once inside, you could almost feel the Yorkshire hospitality as it sucked you in – and that is both from customers and staff.
"The place is super friendly and inside, it's actually pretty smartly decked out, clean and appealing.
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Hide Ad"The lovely lady that served us gave us some good tips on the rest of the town and where to head out to and all in all, this is just a lovely pub with a real community locals type feel about it.
"We stumbled across a little rock n roll/karaoke fun pub called Carters Bar and were drawn in by some absolutely brilliant looking rock n roll memorabilia and guitars that are up on the walls.
"Although only early afternoon (so waaaaaaayyyyyyy too early for any kind of karaoke to be in full swing) you could definitely get the vibe from the place that this is a pretty wicked little fun pub.
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Hide Ad“Stop number three was Saracens. For anyone who watches our crazy 'stories' as the day tends to unfold, you will have seen how packed this place was with a live DJ on from THREE IN THE AFTERNOON!!!
"It's a proper fun time atmosphere in here with a vast array of clientele from young to... well, not so young. Donny goes in HARD... and pretty early.”
“The Lord Nelson had a real fun time atmosphere and party vibe starting early on while The Angel and Royal was next, described as a pub in a semi circle style shape with “something a bit unique” - a little 'Karaoke Booth' which probably holds 10-12 people over on one side of the pub.
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Hide Ad"So essentially, you go to the bar, they provide the microphones etc and then you can shut yourself away and sing until your hearts content without bothering the rest of the pub at all and without the staff having to hear 417 renditions of 'Sweet Caroline' every single day... a great idea.
"A really friendly pub, good friendly staff and a great vibe again early doors.
"Next up was the Doncaster Tap - a lovely little micro pub both upstairs and down that is being run by some really friendly people, followed by Fifteen
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Hide AdThe pair said: “We were blown away by this Donny Party Vibe so early on in the day – around 5pm by this time - as there was another live DJ in full swing... some banging tunes, people already dancing and just an all round banging atmosphere."
Next stop was Pinchos
The pair said: “This place is lovely - really smarty decked out and the staff are absolutely brilliant.
"We opted for the two for £15 cocktail offer whereby Holly had her usual Pornstar Martini and I, of course, challenged the bar staff to rival the greatest Pina Colada that I have ever had -and you know what, they promptly delivered. It is certainly a contender as it was expertly made and thoroughly delicious. An absolutely top notch cocktail bar this.”
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Hide AdThat was followed by The Gate House - described as “pretty packed out and seemed a popular haunt.”
Onto the Tut 'n’ Shive next – the pair described it as “an L-Shaped pub that is pretty cosy inside, had the rugby on the big screens and a nice atmosphere.”
“Next door is The Little Plough “The main bar was pretty busy but it's pretty small in there anyway so doesn't need hundreds of people to look pretty packed out. There's a dartboard in the corner of the main bar, the young lady serving was really friendly and it's a lovely little old building.”
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Hide Ad“As we then rung up pub number 1750 - we found ourselves in the Old Bulls Head which was another really friendly place.
“With the time of the last train that we could catch home, without needing a 14 hour stop over, fast approaching, we headed for somewhere that we'd heard a lot about throughout the day The Famous Biscuit Billy's.
“Now, by the time we got here it was around 7.30pm and the place was absolutely packed and the atmosphere was absolutely top notch.
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Hide Ad"This is how a proper fun pub should be – dancing, merriment and great drinks offers - that include the insane offer of eight 'J-Bombs' (a Jägermeister equivalent) for just ten pounds.
“After all that excitement and with about 15 minutes to spare before we headed back for our train we quickly ventured into 'Ballers Sports Bar' which is a basement level sports bar that has loads and loads of pool and snooker tables, darts boards and a giant video wall. Some great sporting legends up on the walls and a decent atmosphere.
“Thanks Donny, you were superb and we can't wait to come back and do the rest of your lovely town.
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Hide Ad"We will definitely be booking a hotel and staying over for the full 'experience'
The couple are also hoping to beat their record of 22 Strawberry Daquiris in 90 minutes in a bottomless brunch offer at Fifteen, adding: “My current record at a 90 minute bottomless brunch in Nottingham was 22 Strawberry Daquiris.
"I feel we need to head back to Fifteen with camera in hand and take on this offer for a YouTube video.
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Hide Ad"The question is... how many do you think I could actually manage? At a cost of just £16.95 this is a mega good offer and I definitely think that will make a pretty entertaining video.”
What started as an unusual New Year's resolution has now turned into a daily activity and Dale said: "I really want to beat the Guinness World Record attempt of going to the most pubs in 24 hours.
"I reckon if I was to do the challenge on my own I could hit that 80 in 24 hours.
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Hide Ad"You would have to meticulously plan it out so some pubs you would only be in for a few minutes and have a quick shot, but I reckon I could do it."
The pair, who got engaged in a pub last October, said they visit three pubs a day on average and spend every weekend downing pints in locals across the country.
At the weekend, the duo try to visit around 12 pubs on their tick sheet and they once visited 23 pubs in a single day.
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Hide AdDespite the excessive amount of drinking, Dale claims to rarely be hungover.
Dale said: "We normally manage to do it hangover free.
"I think it's because I'm so adapted to drinking nowadays I get away with it.
But the pair still have a lot more bars to tick off.
Dale said: "I wrote down a number which was around 65,000 but you never know if this number includes micro pubs, bars and cocktail bars.
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Hide Ad"I've estimated between 60 to 65,000. I don't think I've got enough years in my body to complete this.
"I'll never be happy until it's completed though. We'll keep going until we can't do it anymore.
"The whole point of this bar crawl is that we were really sad that lots of pubs were closing and it's really sad to drive past them and see them boarded up.
"Anything we can do to help to keep British Pubs open we want to do.