Pinstripe: It's an oversupply thing

The affair, which could have seen the loss of hundreds of jobs, highlights the issue of saturation in the bar market in certain parts of the country.

Judging by comments coming from those familiar with the bar culture of the North East of England, including my mate Dennis, a man who knows a thing or two about running such operations in that part of the world, one could be forgiven for thinking there is a liquor-led hostelry for every man, woman and child up there.

While this is perhaps wishful thinking on the part of those who like the idea of having their very own boozer, the problem of oversupply is one that the licensed trade in general and the High Street in particular have been grappling with in recent years.

One surmises that in addition to the number of pubs and bars will be considerably exacerbated by the smoking ban and only that those with both a firm hand on their operations and a balance sheet that's as solid as a rock will see out the coming storm.

Couple this with rents going through the roof, particularly in a growing number of major cities, and you have a recipe for potential disaster.

It is a situation that surely can't go on in it's present form for much longer. One wonders how much blood will end up on the carpet before things start to get better.

On a lighter note, I was invited by a pub-operating friend of mine to join him in his box at Charlton Athletic on Saturday to watch his team's bottom-of-the-table clash against West Ham.

I'm no aficionado of the technical details concerning the playing of the game, but I know a lame duck when I see one and on Saturday I was looking at 11 of the blighters, all of them wearing claret and blue.