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Topics: UK News, Wetherspoons, Pubs, Food And Drink
Joe Harker
A Wetherspoon superfan has completed his incredible pub crawl of all 875 locations in Britain and Ireland and celebrated by quaffing a couple of bottles of Heineken.
Retired forklift driver David Bingham's journey started in 2019 and this week he finally finished it with a visit to The Flying Horse at Gatwick Airport.
Since the pub is through the ticket barrier he had to pay for a flight to get his last drinks in the final Spoons on his list.
The 60-year-old bought the cheapest plane ticket he could get with an £18 flight to Shannon, Ireland and admitted that he 'won't be flying anywhere' as the airport on the other end 'doesn't even have a Wetherspoons so what's the point'.
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Over the four years he's been going to each and every Spoons, the pub superfan has spent about £30,000 in terms of travel, transport, accommodation and of course plenty of drinks.
Having spent the past four years travelling all across the UK and Ireland to visit every Spoons - some of which have closed down since he's been to them - you might think David would be a bit done with the pub chain for a bit.
However, the Wetherspoon superfan would actually be up for giving his mighty pub crawl another go and redoing the journey.
He said: "I quite like the Flying Horse but there are no toilets because it's an airport so you have to go back out to departures but it's busy with lots of excited travellers so there's a buzz about the place.
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"I always know I'll get my favourite lager and I wasn't disappointed. I’ve loved ticking the pubs off my list and to be honest I’d love to do it again."
Now he wants to take Spoons boss Tim Martin for a pint, especially because in more than one pub where he's rocked up and explained what he's doing the staff told him he'd just missed the owner.
David's also asked if he can have a tour around the company headquarters in Watford and even though he's sure it'd just be a look around the offices he wants to thank everyone who works there for 'doing such a great job'.
He first got the idea after his partner Una Cooper bought him a Wetherspoons directory for £3 off eBay and he thought he'd enjoy crossing every single pub off the list.
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While they tend to take public transport to make it to the pubs, David did need to go on a hovercraft to reach the Isle of Wight's Man in the Moon pub.
Since there's probably no greater expert in the world on Wetherspoon, it might be useful to know that his favourite pubs on the four-year crawl were the Royal Victoria Pavilion in Ramsgate, The Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds, Harrogate's Winter Gardens and the Caley Picture House in Edinburgh.