Well I don't expect real cider, but we could definitely improve our fare.
I guess the key point about real cider is that it is still. Wetherspoon pubs stock different ones all over the country, Hallets, the Welsh ciders like Black Dragon, Haymaker etc., Weston's Old Rosie etc. Most carry two even in non cider regions, but it varies and many have more. As cider is now a big south Welsh product we now get about five in every Wetherspoons here, and now a fair few in regular pubs. Whetherspoons will vary in the different regions- Suffolk, Kent and the West country have a lot of producers.
Some real ciders are made by people who also do the fizzy stuff. Thatchers own Stan's Cheddar Valley, a golden coloured cloudy cider, for example. Gaymer's own barrell Addlestones whilst making some awful stuff. Most real cider manufacturers do a fizzy yellow version, working the other way round.
Fwiw, in the Ricoh they have sold Healy's Rattler, in the fan village. How it got there is beyond me, it was there in two bars this year once. It isn't real cider, but it is a thousand percent better than the current offerings. A way of putting it to real ale drinkers. Heiniken lager is as close to real ale as Strongbow is to cider. We are literally talking different drinks. Tea and coffee. It is a spectrum, of course, but a bottled not-real-but-not-Strongbow/Bulmers/Magners option like Rattler (now sold in Supermarkets all over the UK), Aspalls, or Taffy Appled would be a fantastic upgrade. Bottles certainly will have a longer expiry date and so won't go unsold.
As for other clubs. Bris do Thatchers, sadly, but again at least they do Thatchers' Haze, which is a bit of choice and not Strongbow.
Glaws do Stowford Press iirc, again pretty fizzy and yellow, though the pubs over from Castle Grimm offer a wider choice. Iirc Worc do two fizzy yellow ones. So it is true, other clubs don't do much better, but they do do a little better, because the three worst drinks on the market are Strongbow, Magners and Bulmers, followed by alcopops like Old Moot and Swedish fruit ciders. It sounds churlish, but the drink selection has influenced my decision on tickets. I can do about eight to ten games a year, home/away, and nowadays I do more away than I used to. To come from where I work in Llanelli to Coventry, with no drink at the end beyond tea is just not as appealing, especially as when going to Bath, etc. I know the pubs that do something I like. It is not about favourite tipples, I can't see many Purity ale drinkers complaining if I changed their ale to Doombar or some such, but if I changed it to fizzy lager they would not buy, which is pretty much how I behave when the cider option is Bulmers/Magners/Strongbow.
Anyway I am off by coincidence to Cornwall today.
Happy cider territory.....
Cheers all.
Always a Wasp