‘Pubs don’t survive without communities’: Local pub taps into sport to drive fundraising

Mike Dove, along with business partner Tommy Higgs, operates the tenancy of Admiral Taverns site the Three Horseshoes, in Witney, Oxfordshire, and this weekend is going to be massive.

Dove and Higgs took the tenancy on three years ago and their ethos is firmly on the community.

“Pubs don’t survive without communities and vice versa,” Dove says. “We love to do stuff for charity and think we have a duty of care to try to give back wherever possible. It also creates that community spirit.

“We’ve probably raised about £50,000 in three years and we’re only a small pub-restaurant.”

He explains a huge event in 2024 for the Darby Rimmer Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Foundation saw the site raise an epic £20,000 in a single evening.

Ipswich Town FC legend Marcus Stewart, who is a friend of Dove’s, was diagnosed with MND about three years ago.

“It hit me quite hard so we wanted to do an event with him,” Dove recalls. “[Liverpool legend] Graeme Souness came along as a guest. He’s very good friends of one of our regulars and was brilliant.

“He contacted Tommy and myself a few months ago and he said he really enjoyed the evening and he wanted to work with us. He said he liked what we did and the reasons we did it for.”

Born from this was a plan to host a huge dinner event followed by an auction of sporting memorabilia at the Three Horseshoes on Saturday 30 May.

Souness and ex-Southampton star Matt Le-Tissier are guest speakers while the event will also have a comedian, a close-up magician, a former pianist from the Ritz in London. And the auction will have prizes such as a signed Lionel Messi football shirt and a box for 10 top see singer Ariana Grande at the O2.

Thrown everything into it

The charity this time will be Debra, of which Souness is president – with help going towards people living with epidermolysis bullosa – and although there is no specific financial target put on the event, Dove believes a staggering £100,000 would not be out of the question.

And Souness is so dedicated to working with Dove and Higgs, he has agreed to host events with them during the next three years.

But Dove thinks big and managed to persuade Souness to be a manager for a football tournament the following day (Sunday 31 May) with Le Tissier playing alongside Carlton Palmer, David Howells, Dean Windass, Dean Saunders, Jimmy Bullard, Wes Brown, Neil Ruddock and former England centre back Mark Wright.

“We’ve thrown everything into it and that’s an all-day tournament to be followed by another charity auction to conclude the day,” says Dove, who also runs the White Swan in the village of Whitchurch in Buckinghamshire with Higgs.

“You don’t see many things like this just coming out of a pub. We like to do things differently.”

The football tournament will take place at Oxford City FC with 100% of the gate receipts going to the charity. And Dove claims if the stadium sells out that could amount to between £40k and £50k immediately.

The pub will cover its expenditures through wet and dry sales but is insistent as much money as possible goes to Debra UK. Plus a lot of sponsorship has been gained and has helped pay for much of the two events.

“We’re not in this to make a lot of money even though the pub industry is bloody tough at the moment,” he adds. “We will also make a donation to the charity as a business.”

A sporting memorabilia company has provided lots of items for the auctions too.

Football is not the only sport either. Cricket has helped boost charity coffers previously too with the likes of Henry Bloefeld and David Gower performing talks at the Three Horseshoes with a monetary donation going to the Professional Cricketers Association.

Do it your own way

The pipeline for the pub operators – who are also the reigning champions of the British Institute of Innkeeping’s (BII) Licensee of the Year Award (LOYA), which they won in June last year and are two of the judges for this 2026 renewal – remains strong with not only with Souness. Another event with Gower plus Michael Atherton are planned for cricket lovers and ex-Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Mark Crossley regaling stories about Brian ‘old big head’ Clough too.

Dove says: “Our demographic ranges between 25-year-olds through to 95-year-olds. When we took over the place, we wanted to take it back to being a pub that did really good food rather than it just being seen as a restaurant, which it had been under the previous ownership.

“We’ve got a mix between a strong core of regulars drinkers and lots of regular diners.”

Dove offers three tips to other pub operators wanting to emulate pubs events with sporting stars.

“Firstly, make sure you are original and do it your own way. A lot of people would copy others but that dilutes things.

“Secondly, be brave. Don’t hold back. If you have a vision of where you want something to go and if you can give yourself the time to do it, go for it.”

And he adds you have to get the sporting legends on board in the first place. The advice is: “Never take no for an answer. I’ve spent the past eight months speaking to these people. There’s a real fine line so you can’t hassle people because you will p**s them off and then it starts to fall apart.

“You’ve got to be respectful and be decent to these people and know that if they’re going to consider it, they’re going to be giving up their time. Every single footballer, by the way, has given up their time for nothing for our events.

“OK so thanks to our sponsors, we’re putting them up in hotels but they’re coming from every part of the country for free.

“Build good relationships with these people, even if they said no, you never know when you might work with them again and don’t burn those bridges.”