The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has named the Kettering Midland Band Social Club in Northamptonshire as one of the four best member clubs in the UK as part of the Club of the Year 2024 competition. The four finalists will now have a chance to win the overall Club of the Year title, which will be announced in early 2025.
A popular club tucked away close to Rockingham Road Pleasure Park. The Midland Band Club has plenty of space to accommodate guests, with a long public bar, sunken lounge area, a separate games area and a large concert room for events. Five guest beers from independent breweries are on the bar including one dark beer, with Bar Manager David Bellamy having previously won Club Mirror’s Bar Manager of the Year. The club actively strives to entertain its community with a busy social diary and regular organised trips.
Bar Manager David Bellamy said: “To say I am overwhelmed is an understatement. It makes six and a half years of hard work all worthwhile in taking the club from strength to strength and promoting good real ale with the management committee's full support.”
Hubert Gieschen, Acting East Central Regional Director for CAMRA said:
“The Kettering Midland Band Social Club should be immensely proud of this achievement, to be included in the final four of the Club of the Year competition is no mean feat. Their commitment to giving their members a choice of top-quality beers has meant they’ve been awarded Northamptonshire’s Club of the Year for the last three years, and now it’s only right that they have secured a place in the final four in the UK.”
Notes to editors
Full list of the super-regional winners:
Haydock Reading Room - Merseyside and Cheshire
Kettering Midland Band Club – East Central
Marden Village Club – South East
Firs Club – West Midlands
For images, contact CAMRA's Press Office at: press@camra.org.uk
CAMRA campaigns to protect and promote clubs, as well as pubs, which are important community assets that promote the social wellbeing of their local area. The Club of the Year competition is run in conjunction with Club Mirror magazine and is the highest honour the campaigning organisation can award a social club.
All of the clubs in the competition are selected by CAMRA volunteers and judged on their atmosphere, decor, welcome, service, value for money, customer mix and most importantly – quality of beer.
