The Bristol football pub that also serves an ‘all you can eat’ breakfast buffet

The ‘home fans only’ message chalked across the A-board on the pavement outside The Robins is a polite reminder that this pub is a sacred place for Bristol City fans.

Like the brilliant Three Lions in nearby West Street and The Masonic in North Street, red is very much the colour at this 1960s-built pub close to Ashton Gate stadium.

Even the Christmas wreaths on sale at the pub this weekend are more red and white instead of the traditional gold and silver.

Inside the carpeted, two-bar pub, signed Bristol City shirts and photos of the stadium adorn the walls. Next to my table, bearded Robins centre back Tomáš Kalas stared down at me from a painting next to a pair of red and white balloons.

On the far wall, a World Cup match was being beamed onto the back wall, flanked by more signed City shirts.

Sit outside on match day, and you can hear the roar of the crowd from the ground a few minutes’ walk away. That’s if it’s not drowned out by the traffic heading to the huge Sainsbury’s around the corner.

The Robins is packed to the rafters on match days but during the week it tends to be a popular pitstop for locals on the way home from work.

On a typical day, the clientele will be made up of local scaffolders and builders stopping off for a pint. If you’re looking for somebody to fix your roof or put a new bathroom in, chances are somebody will be able to help, or at least know somebody who can. Who needs the Yellow Pages with pubs like The Robins?

And if it’s ‘proper’ local knowledge about the new Clean Air Zone, this is the place. A few of the drinkers chatting in the bar seemed to already know all the best legal shortcuts to avoid those fines.

Available for functions, the pub also hosts occasional live music. On December 16, it’s Mojo Funk and the £10 ticket price even includes a curry to enjoy before you hit the dance floor and show off your best James Brown moves.

Although the bar food in the evening is restricted to £1 pickled eggs, packets of pork scratchings and nuts/crisps, early bird visitors at the weekend can order the ‘all you can eat’ breakfast.

Served on Fridays and Saturdays, from 8am-12noon, they cost £8.95 and come highly recommended according to one satisfied regular I chatted to at the bar.

Being a Bristol City pub, Thatchers cider - Gold, Haze or Dry - tends to be one of the popular options at the pumps.

The hand pump for the Butcombe had a cloth draped over it so it had either sold out completely, or the regulars had lost their taste for real ale.

But there’s also Amstel, Guinness, Carling, Foster’s, Birra Moretti and keg John Smiths on offer, so there’s plenty to choose from when you’re downing a few pints before the Stoke City home match at Ashton Gate on December 17.

Of course, that’s if you haven’t overdone it on the dancefloor after that funk night curry the previous evening, or pigged out at the breakfast buffet first thing.

The Robins, Ashton Drive, Ashton, Bristol, BS3 2PW.