Premiership preview: profile

A diet of football and rugby has seen profits soar at the Archers in Gidea Park.

Frank Shivers is a guv'nor who knows how to make his customers happy. "Free bar while stocks last!" he yelled as the final whistle blew on the last England v Ireland Six Nations rugby match.

For some reason, though, joy turned to violence as Frank merrily handed out his free bars of Kit Kat. "They were chucking them back at me," he said, apparently surprised at the reaction to his generosity.

After all, according to the Greene King Pub Company slogan Frank is "Licensed to Sell", not licensed to give stuff away for nothing. And he's so good at it that the Suffolk brewer Photoshopped his head on to James Bond's body for the cover of the company mag after his house, the Archers in Gidea Park, Essex, was named the 600-strong managed chain's Pub of the Year 2003.

Certainly his sales are impressive. In the 12 months running up to the competition they were up by 13 per cent on the previous year and those figures were 30 per cent up on 2001/2, producing increases in operating profits of 43 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

Within that, there were some astonishing highlights for the sports-led community pub.

On the day of the England v Argentina game during last summer's football World Cup, the Archers took £16,000.

Then, in just three hours at lunchtime on Christmas Day, £2,370 was taken over the bar to make Frank's pub the best performer in Greene King's high street division.

All that, the manager points out, in a house that hasn't had a refurb in nearly five years.

At the heart of Frank's success are relationships - the relationships he has with his staff and the relationships they have with the customers.

Yet his licensed trade career began, seven years ago, in the kind of outlets where you don't have much chance to get to know people.

He was working in a packing factory in Belfast when he visited a friend in Croydon who was manager of Regent Inns' Spoofers bar.

"I stayed for two weeks, did a couple of stints behind the bar and fell in love with the pub business," he said.

He joined Regent's management training scheme, took over the Griffin in the Strand and was poached by the Davy's chain and put in charge of its Covent Garden branch with a £32,000 weekly turnover.

But it wasn't quite what Frank wanted. "If there were five regulars that was it. At Spoofers it was all locals, you knew everyone. That was the kind of pub that appealed more to me."

He met Greene King, explained what he was looking for and Archers was one of the pubs he was shown.

Archers was the creation of a local entrepreneur. It had thrived as a wine bar in the 1980s but by the time Frank got there, it had fallen on hard times.

"The customers were mostly 18 and 19-year-olds who came in to play pool," he said. "But I immediately felt that the atmosphere was right and saw the potential.

"The building has character, I liked the area and I knew I could get the local rugby and golf clubs in."

To begin with it was back to basics, giving the pub a good clear up, changing the lay-out and setting some service standards.

"Before anything else we had to get the place up to a level where people would want to be in here again," said Frank. But there were also some people he had to deter.

"We took the pool table out and that put a few off, the others we asked to leave.

"As soon as we did that, after two or three weeks, trade picked up and proper Gidea Park people started coming in. The Archers got its good reputation back."

Once the customer base was right, Frank and his wife Claire set about establishing the sports coverage and events that would really build trade.

West Ham is the Archers' side and a number of their players have popped in for a drink. The Hammers dropped out of the Premiership last season but Frank is confident they'll be competing at the top of the First Division this season and even thinks there will be increased interest in the games.

Sport at the pub is not just a matter of switching the telly on. The big matches are built into a major occasion.

There are other events, too. Frank and Claire host regular barbecues and beach parties, plus karaoke, quiz nights and events to celebrate Hallowe'en, Valentine's Day, Australia Day, you name it.

Individual members of staff are given responsibility for organising events they are enthusiastic about, given a budget and left to get on with it.

By involving his staff in the business, Frank makes sure the regulars are involved and enthused too.

"My main priority is to get staff to interact with customers so that it's more of a friendship between them than purely a service relationship," he explained. "Our staff are involved in every issue that affects the pub."

As well as trusting them with events, this happens in various ways. Staff set their own goals and come up with ideas for activities. Team meetings include an element of role-playing in which staff act the part of awkward customers and learn how to deal with problems.

Training might consist of visiting other pubs and analysing good and bad service. "We have even recruited people we like from seeing them at work behind the bar," said Frank.

One unusual staff incentive is Pass the Tenner. When a particular drink, say tequila, is on promotion, a £10 note is held by the last barperson to serve one. Whoever is holding the tenner at closing time gets to keep it. The effect is to build a competitive team spirit as much as to sell more drink, believes Frank.

There is also an employee of the month contest. The winner, voted for by the rest of the team, gets a £50 prize tailored to suit their personality or interests.

Staff have a big say in choosing new colleagues who they feel will fit in - and on one occasion even the customers played a part by having a whip-round to fly one of their favourites back from Australia.

In just a few years Frank Shivers has made the Archers his own and the centre of the community. As he says: "Although it's a Greene King pub, ask 100 people out in the street here and they'll say it's Frank's bar."

Pictured: Frank Shivers as James Bond after the Archers won Greene King's Pub of the Year.​