London: A pub co-owned by England pace-bowling stalwart Stuart Broad in Upper Broughton, East Midlands, has been ravaged by fire, according to a report in mirror.co.uk.
The roof of the Tap & Run pub, owned by Broad and former teammate Harry Gurney, was destroyed in the major fire which broke out on Saturday night, and it took eight fire tenders to bring the blaze under control.
“The Tap & Run in Upper Broughton is run by The Cat & Wickets Pub Company, which Broad launched in 2016 along with his former England and Nottinghamshire teammate Harry Gurney. The fire was first reported at 3.22am (GMT) on Saturday after breaking out in the roof and on the first floor of the pub,” the report said.
Reportedly no one suffered an injury but the the roof and first floor were badly damaged. Jonathan Wilson, station manager at Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue, was quoted as saying in the report that, “We were mobilised to this building fire and we had eight appliances here and an aerial ladder platform.
“Swift action by the crews has contained the fire to the building but the building is quite badly damaged. We are working to dampen it down and will probably be here doing that for the next couple of hours at least.
“There was not believed to be anybody inside the building and the fire was contained to the building itself. Crews from Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire together have been working to deal with it.
“We are going to concentrate on putting the fire out — we are having a structural engineer have a look at the building as well to see if it is structurally safe, then there will be an investigation.”
The fire took place as Broad was playing in the second Test againt New Zealand at Trent Bridge.
Partners Broad and Gurney issued a statement saying they were ‘heartbroken’.
“We’re absolutely devastated to report that a fire broke out in the pub during the night. We are heartbroken to see our beautiful pub up in flames. We are so sorry that we will be unable to honour any bookings for the foreseeable future and sorry for any distress that the fire has caused to villagers. We will keep everyone updated on social media in the coming days and weeks.”