THEY sit unassumingly just around the corner or at the end of the road.

We may drive past them on our way to work without noticing them. We may know their names but we maybe haven’t really got to know them. We heard a few bad stories from a friend of a friend – heard they were a bit rough and ready.

They are the kind of pubs where the music stops and heads turn when a stranger walks in.

That’s what I thought, anyway. I’m talking about the kind of pubs that are neither village nor city centre. They are slap bang in the middle of housing estates or rows of terraced houses but, as I found out, they may just be the places where the true essence of the British boozer is making a gallant stand.

Take the Pack of Cards, in Lindsey Avenue, a building of absolutely no architectural merit nestled in the middle of flats and semi-detached houses in Acomb.

Owner Tony Richardson, 49, believes it is pubs like his that form the centre of the community.

“We rely mainly on locals,” he said. “I rely on my darts team and pool team and domino team. I’m a great believer in the old traditions of pubs.

“Most of my customers are either unemployed or self-employed and because of the weather some of them may not have worked since January.”

It is this understanding of his punters that has seen Tony keeps his prices down.

“I work to a strategy of £10. Carling is my biggest seller at £2.50 a pint so you can get four pints for a tenner and afford a night out.”

Across Acomb at the King William, in Barkston Avenue, and landlady Carol Atkinson said she too relies on traditional teams playing bar room games to bring in the punters.

“We have a good weekend trade but during the week we rely on those teams to keep us going. We don’t have any passing trade, it’s just the locals.

“At Easter, we might have a barbecue but because of the weather we haven’t been able to do that. Last year we had an Easter parade and an egg hunt in the park.

“We are definitely the traditional English pub. You go into town now and they are nothing like pubs – they are more like night clubs. We rely on providing a good clean pub and giving locals a nice atmosphere.”

Another local where atmosphere, including a bar billiards table, can be found in bucketfuls is the Golden Ball, pictured, in Cromwell Road, behind Skeldergate.

Landlady Linda Foster told of the variety of clubs and societies, some bordering on the eccentric, which make the pub their meeting place.

She said: “We have the Blind Baking Society who bring their own creations in and decide who’s baked the best thing that week.

“We have a blue grass band which comes in for a jam session – they sit at a table playing every Sunday.

“It keeps the community spirit – we are a focal point.”