Harry Abrahams Stadium

Great stuff Joe!

Leyton F.C. (formed in 1868 -re-formed in 1997) are very much a Greek club now and owner/chairman Costas Sophocleous performs a near miracle keeping them going on two (that's right!) figure gates in the Ryman League1(North)

They recently obtained a High Court ruling that THEY were the rightful club to call the heritage of the original Leyton F.C. their own and NOT Leyton Pennant F.C. who had also contested the right.

Never a place for the faint hearted, there have been a number of major bundles at The Hare and Hounds over the years including two I was there for when the late Ronnie Duke manager of Hendon managing to get ejected by the police when his side were nine nil up away from home and STILL berated the match officials by peering over the perimeter wall whilst standing on a chair and a local Hackney & District Sunday Final which ended in bloody carnage with scaffolding poles being used as weapons, three ambulances and nine police vans being called and everyone of us who hadn't run away being held in the ground until the police had taken our details............all that over a "lairey" tackle!

The "E10" is well smart and in fact has fixtures and fittings that Costas obtained when the Wembley auction was held after the old place was pulled down so that now when you sit down for dinner you've got your arse on a chair that the great and good have parked their jaxies on!

I would recommend it to anyone and also suggest taking a look at Alpinejoe's link for a view of the Hare & Hounds.

The folk you refer to Dave are of the Hassidic (Orthodox) Jewish community of Stamford Hill N16 -just South of Tottenham which in itself is not considered a Jewish area per se.

They live a dedicated life often completely at odds with the more progressive Jews strictly observing the Sabbath and other Jewish customs (you'd never catch any "Freumers" at White Hart Lane on a Saturday) and are easily recognisable by their attire: Homburgs or trilbies over a kappa, frock coats, etc and all in the regulation black or dark blue. The boys will often be seen in little "Oliver Twist" caps with their temple locks tumbling down from shaved heads. Whenever I pass through "Volvo City" in the early hours before dawn there will be loads of rabbis scuttling about in their silk stockings and "Wagon Wheel" or "Cossack" fur hats leading groups of young boys to prayer at their synagogues.

A stroll through the cobbled back streets of N16 is like taking a time machine back to nineteenth century Russia....................and you'll only hear Yiddish spoken.

London Jewry has it's origins in the area due East of the old City Walls at what is now known as Brick Lane and nowadays associated with the Bengali Community.................it's where London has always "accommodated" the displaced and the persecuted and evidence of the switch from Hebrew to Islam was hit home to me the other morning when I made a 6am stop off at the famed Brick Lane Beigel shop (the last vestige of Jewish life down there) and got served by a fine Jewish Momma ably assisted by Ali, her Bengali cook! Such typical and pragmatic East End juxtaposition contrasting sharply with all the Jewish - Islamic intolerance in the world of the past and today.

Whoever makes them, you can't beat a salt beef beigel at 6am in Brick Lane smothered in the hottest mustard one would ever need to shake the cobwebs off! Delicious, seriously delicious!!!!!!