Forget Aintree — the real Grand National is in Williamson Square

Hello! It's Abi here. We hope you enjoy today's piece on the Grand National, and the best of luck to you for any bets you may have placed...

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There are no pillboxes in Betfred: just wooly hats, flat caps, the occasional bald spot worn bare. Koktail Divin is launching ahead into first place as Lulamba dramatically unseats. It’s spitting in Aintree – you can see it on the telly – and it’s spitting here in Williamson Square too, as afternoon crowds take shelter in the betting shops and pubs, nursing coffees or pints, clutching scrawled-on copies of the Racing Post. The general consensus seems to be that if you want to get dressed up, you go to Aintree. If you want to make some serious money on a horse, you’re better off sticking around here.

I’d never really bet on anything until about a week ago. My gambling habits generally begin at scratch cards (Triplers, exclusively) and end at bingo (Mecca, occasionally, but more often than not just at the pub). But when my neighbour Kev, a trawlerman from Cork, stumbled excitably into our local the other day and told me that a friend of his had met “the horseracing version of Mark O’Haire” at the airport in Dublin, and that that man had told the friend that he should bet on a certain horse at the Grand National, and that the friend had told Kev, and now Kev was telling me, I immediately went with him to the local betting shop and put ten each way on… well, actually, telling is bad luck.

And so it happened that, on Thursday, I became curious about the sorts of people who, like me, come to Liverpool for the Grand National, but don’t actually travel as far as Aintree. I’ve heard about them: The throngs in the pubs and the solo-travellers in the bookies, many from Ireland, others Geordies, Brummies, and Glaswegians such as myself.

And as I walk into the Williamson Square Betfred, I’m preceded by a group of exactly this sort — smart Irishmen in flatcaps, blue jeans, tweed blazers. They huddle around the counter, circling horses, scrawling bets, far too occupied to talk. I have more luck in Paddy Power, if not with betting than with chatting. There, Dan the bookie tells me that, come Saturday, “Williamson Square will just be packed” with “loads and loads of Irish” as well as “everyone from everywhere, really”. Even on that Thursday, groups of men (only men) rush between the three clustered bookies – Betfred, Paddy Power, William Hill – and the Richmond Pub, leaving half-drunk pints on the bar while they go make last-minute bets. One man in Paddy Power with a stretch of tape over one eye sits studying the screens intently with the other. He tells me he first bet on a horse when he was ten years old — well, his dad placed the bet for him, and he won, and spent his winnings on sweets. Now he’s 70 years old, retired, and he spends his winnings on rent. By his own admission he’ll spend the next three days bouncing between the three betting shops, and at home reading up on trainers and odds.