The Spike Islander, Sholing, Southampton

Previously The Yacht, this truly awful dump isn’t so much a pub as a pair of rooms with a battered counter where drunken yobs go to get even more drunk on cheap megakeg insect water from broken, unidentifiable taps while yelling obscenities at the TV showing football. The room on the left was somewhat quieter, but then no lights were on and there were no taps at all on the bar counter. The larger bar on the right is formed from two earlier rooms, and as such has two sets of broken taps dispensing whatever it is. Token handpumps were present but clearly unused for a long time. There was a pool table in use, a piano out of use and a confused collie wandering around looking fruitlessly for an intellectual equal. The two female staff were at least friendly, unlike the entirety of the male customers, who just weren’t. Parking is on the two-sided forecourt, but it was at best haphazard, while the children’s play apparatus in the small garden looked unhygienic. Given the choice between a root canal filling and an evening here, I should take the former.

Facebook page of The Spike Islander - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of The Spike Islander - www.facebook.com