Crawley: Time to create an Olympic legacy for pubs

03-Sep-2012 - Last updated on 12-Mar-2017 at 02:15 GMT

Stephen Crawley is managing director of Caledonian Brewery

I was lucky to be invited to the opening ceremony of the Paralympic games. It was a fantastic occasion for the 4,000 plus athletes from 140 nations.

For me the highlight of the night was the entry of the host nation, Team GB, at the end of the parade to 'You can be heroes’.... just for one day.

The atmosphere reached a real crescendo and emotions ran high as the special 2012 theme of Britishness was emphasised by the union jack clad wheels and the crowds handheld union jacks!

The contrast and low point of the whole experience was the queue for coffee! That took the same time as the teams from China to the USA took to enter the stadium! The queues looked so long I grabbed a beer (2 mins wait) from one of the mobile vendors before I joined the queue!

The staff in the vending / serving area had no chance of being heroes - the single coffee machine for lattes, Americanos, filter, etc simply could not cope.

When I was 10 people back from the counter, the systems were obviously lacking too! Peoples orders were being recorded on a till roll! The long strip of paper with orders scribed on it was not working well as customers who had ordered had to shout their order again and grab theirs as they randomly appeared on the counter. It was very unheroic!

The Bowie lyrics stuck with me all week! – ‘We could be heroes’ was in my head as I visited pubs. There are so many opportunities for employees to be heroes in pubs every minute of the day.

Yes we admire the Olympic and Paralympic dedicated 4 year training cycles for athletes - overcoming adversity with dedication and attention to detail.

But there are examples in pubs that also make you proud every day.

I met a publican, in his sixties, who had taken another pub (15 year lease) because of pension difficulties (40 years experience)

He was dedicated to his task, he was trying hard with the exuberance of a young athlete and was convinced that by the time Rio arrives even if he does not win a medal he will be a member of Team GB Public Houses employing a team of heroes for 365 days a year to deliver a British experience every day to match the euphoria of 2012.

An Olympic pub legacy would be fantastic!