England football postponement "positive" for pubs

The match was called off at 8.45pm GMT due to heavy rain and has been rescheduled for 4pm today.

"It is probably good news for us, all things considered,” said Paul Wigham of All Our Bars.

“People were out in the pubs last night anyway and even though it was called off, there were other games on.

“The issue we have with England games is that they are normally on terrestrial and nobody wants to come out for them, but I think a 4pm kick-off could work out quite well for us, especially given where our pubs are in towns.

“People will probably want to catch the second half straight after work or leave early so they can see the whole match.”

Richard Raven, marketing manager for Grand Union Bars, said that the cancellation could generally be seen as a “positive” for the chain, which includes a number of sports bars.

“There were one or two groups who requested the game but because of the timing of the cancellation, most people ended up staying quite late anyway,” said Raven.

“It didn’t really have an impact, and if it did it was probably more positive than negative.”

Meanwhile, Nick Griffin of Brighton-based Pleisure Pubs, is putting the game on in three of his venues but admitted that football “is a fairly new thing for us”.

“We only installed Sky six months ago,” said Griffin. “It is something that we do but it is not the reason we exist.”

Asked whether he expected an upturn in trade from showing the game today, Griffin added: “Possibly - but I am not sure that our pubs are the kind of pubs where football works.”