TOUR DE FRANCE 2014
The weekend of the 2014 Tour de France will live long in all of our memories. Fine summer weather brought nearly 1800 visitors flocking to West Burton and the Open Air Party on the Saturday night went down a storm.
Below is a short story of our experiences from Day 1 to the Race
The day we first heard that the Tour De France was coming to our lovely village we had no idea how huge this event was, and we were shocked that within 24 hours all our rooms had been booked up (a whole 18 months before the event) Which got us thinking "We have to make the most of this". So for the next few months we got our thinking caps on and came up with throwing a huge party on the green to celebrate the tours passing, but then where would everyone stay? So we had contact with a few local farmers and they kindly donated their fields so we could offer camping to the influx of people expected in the area. We then started advertising anywhere and everywhere and had a great response from it. The following months were spent planning the camping and party down to the finest detail so we were confident when the weekend came, we were ready.
As the months turned into weeks, and weeks into days we could not believe how much planning and organising went into making the weekend a success and how proud we were of all the staff that had helped us. As the Friday arrived, as too did over 200 excited campers from all over Europe wanting to catch a glimpse of their favorite rider. Many sporting their Riders colours or the famous Yellow jersey. And of course once they had settled into the campsite they all needed oiling up, in fact the Friday night we even had to open up our outside bar we had set up just to be able to serve everyone and carried on serving late into the night and early into the morning.
And then the Saturday arrived, we started work at 6am preparing the mountain of food we were serving that day and finalising everything for the Party. For the next few hours (as we expected) the village green was like a ghost town because everyone had taken the short walk to the main road where the tour was passing, giving us chance to watch some of the race on television. As the Convoy of sponsor vehicles and support trucks passed we heard the roar of the crown echoing up the village and the buffeting of nine helicopters following the riders, and then.... it was quiet...for the next 2 minutes. We were all waiting outside the pub to welcome everyone and we couldnt believe our eyes, what looked like an army was walking up to the green. We then kicked into action serving as many people as we could with Beer, Hot Dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, Fish & Chips, Pies etc. This Carried on into the night untill we finally closed up after no doubtedly, the busiest day in the pubs history.
We would like to thank all our staff here at the Fox and Hounds for the amazing effort they put in, and also to the many helpers we had that made the weekend what it was.
Here Are Some Facts of what we sold over the weekend:
Over 3000 Pints of Beer
600 Meals served up on Friday and Saturday
300 Pulled Pork Sandwiches
400 Burgers
400 Hot Dogs
Images Courtesy of Mr Adrian Marsh
