User:Robbie Brown/The Clapham Trifecta

The Clapham Trifecta
The Clapham Trifecta is a pub crawl route in Clapham, London that comprises The Clapham North, The Falcon and The Railway Tavern. The Trifecta was formalised in the second half of 2008 by Robbie Brown and Neil Brandrick as a means of achieving light entertainment in an alcohol-related setting on a Sunday afternoon.

The Railway Tavern
The Railway Tavern is a grand Victorian building located on Clapham High Street right next to Clapham High Street train station. The Railway Tavern has huge beautiful windows on both sides that fill the open bar with natural daylight, making it the ideal place to watch the world go by during the day and the place to be seen in the twilight hours. Since the 1950s when it was converted from an American sports car showroom, the Railway Tavern has been a popular haunt for a wide variety of people from builders and actors to tree surgeons and ad men. Its ambience and great music vibe stand it out from the crowded bars of Clapham as the only place to be if you want an individual experience.

The Railway underwent a dramatic exterior renovation in the winter of 2009, when the lime green paint job was controversially replaced by bright purple. The alterations were initially unpopular with many of the local drinking fraternity, which even led to some cries for its replacement as the start of the Trifecta. The Railway has however attempted to reconcile with the public through its "check shirt night" initative and the introduction of Steely Dan to the music list.

The Matthew Akers Controversy
In May 2009, Matt Akers defied the Trifecta authorities by taking a young lady from the Tooting area on a date at the Trifecta's nearby rival, the Royal Oak. Many of the Trifecta's supporters saw this move as a deliberate and callous attempt on Akers' part to undermine the importance of the Trifecta. The anger was further compounded when it emerged that the young lady in question had met Akers in The Clapham North the previous Sunday, with the majority of the groundwork of the relationship having been completed by Robbie Brown.

Akers later defended himself in the towns local press by stating that "the date was not held on a Sunday and at no point did I ever intend to undermine the Trifecta's position as the premier drinking pursuit on a Sunday afternoon". Akers has since doubled his efforts to reinstate the reputation of the Trifecta, primarily by participating in heavy drinking along the route on both Saturday and Sunday evenings. It is believed that Brandrick and Brown have since forgiven Akers and have drawn a line under the matter.

Vantage Points
In November 2008 the Ordnance Survey commissioned a new map showing the locus of all points in the area from which all three Trifecta venues can been seen simultaneously. The map, due to be published in late 2009, is eagerly awaited by the Clapham population, with some analysts predicting that sales will run into several thousands. Whilst it is not know exactly how many such vantage points exist, one example can be found at

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=clapham+north,&sll=51.463874,0.129519&sspn=0.006804,0.019226&ie=UTF8&radius=0.41&rq=1&ll=51.464823,-0.130398&spn=0,359.980774&z=16&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=51.464754,-0.130484&panoid=mRhISqX5EzY2zP5k0giDdA&cbp=12,51.63,,0,-3.84

Famous Visitors
Numerous celebrities have completed the Trifecta including:

Bruno Brooks, Ricky Tomlinson, Andrei Arshavin, Oswald Mosley, Moira Stuart, James Van Der Beek, Ross Kemp (Kemp later admitted to having not visited the Railway Tavern)

Code of Conduct
1. Conversation is strictly limited to quotes and excerpts from the following:

The Business, Football Factory, The Office, The Inbetweeners

Any dialogue, irrespective of flair, wit and charisma, that does not satisfy the above will be ignored and repeat offenders will be sanctioned on an arbitrary and disproportionate basis.

2. Drinks must be consumed with uncomfortable speed throughout the evening.

This has led some to question the ethics of Trifecta drinking, with most opponents using co-founder Robbie Brown as an example of how drunk one shouldn't really be getting when one has work the following day. However, the Trifecta authorities maintain the simple stance that "if you finish your drink quickly it means you can have another one".