Trade holds up well after Cup humiliation

Well, the World Cup may have been a serious damp squib as far as the pathetic England team was concerned, but at least it gave a healthy boost to trade. As ever, of course, there were winners and losers, and not only on the pitch, as the string of recent company reports and announcements demonstrate.

If you were running a destination food pub over the heady weeks of vuvuzelas and incomprehensible foreign TV pundits, your takings were at least on a par with last year if you were lucky. Boozy lads in England shirts and diners rarely make good bar fellows.

On the other hand, if your pub was a community local with a decent beer offering, some pork scratchings, a big telly and a busty barmaid or two, you probably had a pub that was more crowded than the English penalty area in the Germany game — and a lot more fun too.

The big winners were the supermarkets, of course, and even though the subtlety of their offerings was more like the "kick 'em off the pitch" Dutch than the imaginative Spaniards, it's hard to say it wasn't effective in filling up car boots with lager, lager and more lager.

The pricing we saw over the summer was unbelievably aggressive and the Government's latest stance against below-cost selling, which the hospitality industry broadly supports, means we may never see its like again. Hopefully.

If the World Cup muddied the waters for the pub trade and wasn't the general bonanza some had thought, but many doubted, the weather did for once play a much greater role. After a succession of appalling summer months when wellies and a sou'wester were more seasonal garb than shorts or bikinis, it was/is a pleasure to enjoy some decent sunshine, skimpy skirts and the delights of a well-kept pub garden. It's so easy to take for granted that there will be sun day after day.

Last year July was one of the wettest on record, beating the two previous torrential years. So what if the barbecues have gone into overdrive, the mood is up, people are spending money; getting out for a drink and a meal is a more appealing and leisurely affair when the mercury climbs.

Memories of volcanoes and an expensive euro means more people will holiday at home than for years, and judging by the traffic on the M6 last weekend they were all out at once. Make hay while this sun shines.

Stephen Oliver is managing director of Marston's Beer Company​