Beloved Liverpool pub that's 'bouncing' every Sunday

Woolton Village's pubs have been a constant in Jackie Mallon's life. The 62-year-old, who was born and bred in the village, is landlady of The Cobden - a traditional street corner pub found where Quarry Street meets Cobden Street in Woolton.

Jackie has been in charge at The Cobden for nearly 13 years and previously managed the neighbouring County Court Hotel, which poured its final pint in 2014. But her earliest memories of the village's boozers go back to when she was a young girl and helped out her mum Joyce behind the bar of the County Court.

Taking a break from serving drinkers on Thursday afternoon, Jackie told the ECHO: "My mum worked in the County Court for 15 years and she died 30 years ago, so I'd been working in the County Court since I was about 10 - with my mum."

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"I used to come in here - this was the pub to be in. My mum worked in the Derby Arms, the Gardeners Arms, the County Court. She was Mrs Woolton Village, my mum. Everyone would assume I would be the same but I'm not her - I'm trying to be.

"She knew everything about everybody, everybody knew her. I grew up with all the regulars and there are people who still come in here now, who I've known for 50 years. They're in their 80s now.

"Pubs are just constants in people's lives. I love everything about this pub and I'm full on here, my son lives and works here."

Jackie understands the importance that pubs play in their communities as well as anyone and she is rightly proud of the work she has done at The Cobden. She has driven the pub's resurgence, having taken it over when it seemed its best days were long gone.

She explained: "We used to be licensees in the County Court. My mum worked for the original owners and then they moved on and eventually we ended up managing The County Court for them.

"I met John - my husband, who was a customer. The pub then came up for sale, so we bought the lease off them.

"Meanwhile, The Cobden fell into disarray and it was closed and boarded up for some time - it must have been around 2010. It went to auction because it was just derelict.

"We went for it but another chap pipped us to the post. We met the other guy, who is a property developer from Woolton who asked if we wanted to take it off him. So he's our landlord but he just leaves us to it.

"We made it so that everything everybody loved about the County Court was here. It was so run-down here, it was vile. So we thought we'd bring everything people loved about The County Court and turn the Cobden into an olde-worlde pub again."

She added: "And we've gone from strength to strength. We got a pub of excellence award from CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) this year, we've been in the Good Beer Guide for two years now."

That success has taken plenty of work from Jackie and her team, who have had to respond to changing customer preferences - as well as navigating the coronavirus pandemic and its lockdowns. The pub has long been known for its real ale, but that tends to attract an older customer, which posed an issue after covid.

"The real ale drinkers tend to be of the older generation and they were frightened once they came back from covid, so their drinking habits changed", Jackie explained. "People started drinking from home, not going out at all.

"We used to have a constant Friday night and it was a cask ale night, we'd be selling it all night long. Then it all disappeared and the young ones aren't into cask ales, so all that side waned. We went from having four hand-pulls down to two - we've just had to change."

"But we've always had live music on a Sunday and it's bouncing. This is the place to be. Sunday has always been our night, people have tried to match it but nobody can. I'm not just saying that - the bands will tell you that.

"But Friday nights just fell off a cliff - on a Friday night you would have all these real ale drinkers but a lot have gone. So we started putting live music on each Friday but now all the real ale drinkers have come back because of the CAMRA scheme, but they don't want live music.

"You've got to balance these things. Maybe real ale is coming back, we're now back to three hand pulls and that's a success, there's never any waste on them. People want to talk don't they, so we won't be doing music on a Friday from January.

"We have a quiz on a Monday and it's a full house. We sponsor MSB Woolton FC and it's heaving on a Saturday afternoon after MSB games. Saturday is set, Sunday is brilliant, Monday is brilliant."

It seems then, that Jackie's hard work is paying off. The busiest time of the year for Woolton's pubs is just around the corner and she is well prepared.

She said: "This year, because we haven't had a holiday, we've just redone the pub. We've redecorated, new carpet, we threw everything into making this a bit shinier. You've got to adapt.

"Then we've got the madness of Christmas coming up. You've got all the pub crawls - there's a lad who has been doing one with his mates for 15 years now, since they were 19.

"Now they're all married with children and they come in with prams and now their kids are getting bigger and bigger. That's the annual tradition for people."