The Dolphin is a very friendly Robinsons pub in an interesting part of the town sitting on Windmill St halfway up the valley wall towards the Hollins hills well known for the quality of its beers.. Neighbouring streets give clues to the area's industrial activity - Charles Roe set up a copper smelting factory (much of the ore coming from Alderley Edge) and used a windmill to grind the ore - other clues are Copper St and Calamine St used to process zinc.
Opposite the pub stands a large play area where the big top used to be assembled when the circus hit town and Nick remembers seeing a demonstration of horsemanship by Cossacks in the early fifties. Nick's Dad used to work in the foundry that once stood behind the pub and wore wooden clogs as splashes of molten metal burned right through leather easily. Nick and his brother also wore wooden clogs with a steel hoop on the sole - when they got too small Dad would take them across the playing field to a cobbler who would dig out a bit more of the insides so they would fit again - the comedian Charlie Williams sometimes included in his sketch skidding the floor in clogs so the metal hoop would strike sparks, just as we used to do.
It may be that the pub was built to house the navvies digging the Macclesfield just up the road.
The Dolphin Hatters (recently changed name following the tragic death of a team member) are sitting proudly at the top of the League table not having lost a game yet and although the visitors are second they knew this would be a toughie as the home team contains a Mastermind winner.
The questions were a bit of a mixed bag, perhaps too much sport, a reasonable mix of pop and classical music, some obscure geography - and the WGN felt they had made a wrong call at the start of the game as there seemed to be some imbalance in the questions.
The question master zipped quickly through the questions as the snow had started to fall and all wanted to get home - he did a good job.
Scores for each round were (home team first) 22/14, 19/18, 21/18, 20/14, 16/19 and 14/17 final score 120 to 100. A very pleasant game rounded off with a very tasty selection of sandwiches and a huge tureen of hot soup with bread Many thanks to the landlady, to the Hatters (good luck for the rest of the competition) and to the question master.
2 comments:
The name was indeed changed after the tragic death of a team member, but it was changed to the Dolphin Hammers (as the late Alan Turner was a massive West Ham fan), not the Dolphin Hatters.
Dave Turner. At one stage we had 3 Dave’s on the team with only Liz resolutely refusing to adopt the moniker!
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