Is it Coming Home…?
With the giddy season of a summer football tournament here, the World Cup is a joyous spectacle for us in the capital. Not only are we routinely swept up in the dizzying dreamland of “it’s coming home”, but the city shows off how truly global it is. Every communal space and bar is abuzz with fans supporting teams from all over the world. It means a lot to the hospitality industry as people flood to their favourite venues to take in the games. To watch England dip their toes into the tournament water, I went along to The Garden Vauxhall, writes Christopher Peacock.
The offering is unique in the outside space of Lightbox nightclub, which on the weekends opens just to offer everything you want from a beer garden. This strip along the railway arches makes it perfect for a summer tournament. Big screens, bars, and food. The food regularly changes through the year during its normal operation, and for the World Cup season, it looks as though they may have simplified the offering to allow for more people to fill the space. Plentiful room for the bars and amusements. Plenty of deals on the drinks, from buckets of beer and even Buzzball vending machines. Most of the bar drinks were the usual suspects of beer and fruity ciders out of the tap or bottle, but for me it was the sharp frozen margaritas which really quenched the thirst.
With games running back-to-back, the whole venue needs to smoothly transition out one set of fans for the next, which does create odd bottlenecks due to the shape of the venue and the sheer number of people coming and going. For those of us nervously excited for England’s opener, this was not too big an issue. You could feel the anticipation build for the supposed toughest task in the group stage, and the venue swelled to what felt like capacity. The key then became finding the best spot for the match.
Thanks to the positioning and size of the screens, there are no spoilt views, and the ‘hydration breaks’ introduced by FIFA for this year’s edition of the tournament actually meant trips to the bar were more spaced out rather than a halftime rush. Taking the lead early certainly aided what increasingly became a party vibe for a group stage game. Re-taking the lead again just after half-time was, from an England perspective, truly welcome before Rashford put the icing on the cake late on.
The Garden Vauxhall is trying to show all of the games, no matter the kick-off time. One thing for sure is that for the England games, people will want to book for fear of it selling out. The table bookings will go quickly, especially as they have full access to the upstairs terrace with additional screens. The Garden Vauxhall has its listings for the whole tournament already online with the option to set a reminder for when tickets go on sale. I’m sure some of us will be looking at our wall charts and plotting England’s way through the tournament to book early and not miss out, or that might just be me.
