While some pubs get a name for being 'tough', one now lost city pub gained a reputation as perhaps the most notorious drinking hole in recent history.
Back in 2008, former Liverpool ECHO columnist Paddy Shennan looked back at some of the roughest and toughest pubs from Liverpool's past. One pub, the Eagle and Child, in Huyton was a name that always seemed to come up when the subject was mentioned.
Situated on Liverpool Road, the "monster-sized" pub had an equally intimidating reputation that went before it. Readers who had contacted the ECHO nominating the pub were said, in the majority of cases, to have asked to have their names withheld.
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Not to be confused with any other pub called the Eagle and Child, it was demolished in the mid 1990s. A McDonald's restaurant now occupies the site it once stood on.
A retired Merseyside detective called Albert Kirby, shared his memories of the pub. He said: "It was regarded as being a hell hole and a no-go area. It always had that reputation. I think it was considered a criminals’ sanctuary."
Local celebrity and radio DJ Pete Price, who performed his stand-up comedy act in pubs across the region, said: "There was a story that the pub stank so much they used to use a pig as an air freshener. I once went in there in top hat and tails for a bet – and somehow lived to tell the story."
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Commenters on internet message boards, when discussing rough Merseyside pubs, often highlight the Eagle and Child. Vladi, writing on The Liverpool Way website, said: "It takes some beating.
"I was in there once and they had a mouse racing track set up with everyone betting on these mice. It was all going well until some nutcase tried to eat all the mice for a bet and all hell broke loose. I never went in there much but apparently that was a normal night."
Anny Road, on the same site, agreed. She posted: "I was in there once when a lad on a motorbike came in one door and rode through the bar and out the other door."
And it may be you once heard that old joke on the stand-up comedy circuit: "I was in the Eagle and Child the other night. I was just minding my own business watching a fight in the bar when, suddenly, a snooker match broke out."
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Meanwhile, Liverpool-born journalist Neil Dunkin got in touch to share his memories of the pub back in 2008. He said: "In the 1960s, I went potato and pea-picking in farms in the Kirkby area. A gypsy friend of mine, who was a regular at the Eagle and Child, took me to the pub after work on a Friday.
"As soon as I walked in I had the impression that this was a real rough and tough pub. It was a vast, cavernous place and, because of its atmosphere, the kind of pub where strangers had to go to the gents in groups.
"I remember it having this really heavy reputation in the '60s. But my friend who took me in was a hard case who knew everyone, so I was safe."
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The beginning of the end for the Eagle and Child came in the mid-'90s, when an arrest at the pub and the recovery of a pistol and ammunition sparked a major disturbance. On March 19, 1996, the ECHO reported: "Police who surrounded the Eagle and Child pub, Liverpool Road, Huyton, at around 3.45pm yesterday, were pelted with bricks and eggs by a crowd of around 200 people.
"Armed Response Vehicles and detectives, backed by the Operational Support Division, arrived at the pub after an attempted armed robbery at Threshers off-licence at 3.20pm."
A detective said: "Officers went into the pub and were able to arrest a man. There were about 100 or 150 people inside the pub and some then got involved."
Do you have memories of any other 'rough' or 'tough' pubs? Let us know in the comments section below.
In the meantime, a pistol loaded with three bullets was found on waste ground beside the pub. Another officer told the ECHO: "Around 200 people had gathered outside, and officers were keeping them away.
"That resulted in a disturbance and eggs and bricks were thrown." By around 5.30pm, when the police reopened Liverpool Road, a crowd of around 500 had gathered.
Five months later, the pub was targeted by arsonists three times in one week. Police said the pub had been protected by hoardings after each fire but these had been torn down.
After the latest blaze, a fire brigade spokesman said: "This time it was all destroyed."
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