It’s a sunny Wednesday in New York City, and a handful diehard soccer fans have gathered at London Martin & Co. (6 Stone St.) to watch the afternoon’s Champions League double-header: FC Barcelona vs. Atlético Madrid on one screen and Liverpool vs. Paris St-Germain on the other. Allegiances are divided roughly between the four teams on show, although not everyone’s here for the football.
“I don’t care who wins,” cackled one regular, “so long as you have Tito’s!”
The low key atmosphere stands in pretty sharp contrast to what’s in store once the World Cup rolls into town this summer — or, at least, that’s the prediction of Vincent Burke, the bar’s manager and the son of one of the owners, a genial Liverpool fan with a slight Irish lilt. (“I was born here,” he explained, “but my parents are Irish.”)
Burke knows what he’s talking about, too. He motions down the street at the Broadstone, London Martin & Co.’s sister location, where he was working in 2018, the last time the competition was in a US-friendly time zone. “It was packed,” he recalled. “The front of the building is all windows, and there’d be people queuing up outside, watching the games from the street.”
Like many businesses in the area, London Martin & Co. is planning on embracing World Cup fever. “We’re waiting until a little closer to the date to work out exactly what we’ll be doing,” Burke said. “But we’ll figure out some sort of watch parties, absolutely.” There’s already one particularly big date on the calendar: June 27, when the England team are in town to play their group match against Panama. As its name suggests, London Martin & Co. is an English-themed bar, and no doubt there’ll be many coming in from across the Atlantic to see if football is in fact coming home at long last.
Does Burke know if there are many England fans planning to stay in the area? “I hope so!”, he said. “I’d like to think so.” He’s heard hotels are booking up already, which makes sense given Lower Manhattan is a great place for fans to base their World Cup stay — it’s convenient for accessing travel options to New Jersey, and home to many of New York City’s tourist landmarks.
Even if the England team weren’t coming to town themselves, Burke says he’d expect a bunch of England fans in for the games. “A lot of people from London, or England generally, work down here, so they’ll come in here to watch [Premier League] games,” he said. He also says that the area’s post-Covid transformation, with many empty offices being repurposed as residential buildings, has meant that the bar’s clientele has begun to encompass more people who live locally. Given that those new residents are from all over the world, the World Cup will provide a real boost to the neighborhood — and with 48 teams competing for the first time, more people than ever will be able to cheer for their own national team.
Sadly, their number doesn’t include Burke himself, as Ireland are absent from this year’s tournament. Burke says this means he’ll essentially be a neutral this time around — which, if nothing else, allows for watching the games with a minimum of anxiety. That’s not the case this afternoon, though. As we speak, a few scattered cheers go up around the bar, and Burke shoots a glance at the TV. But it’s Barcelona who have scored — the Liverpool game is still 0-0. (Sadly, it won’t end that way, with a comprehensive PSG victory sending Liverpool out of the Champions League for 2026.)
So, one final question for Burle: who’s going to win the World Cup?. “I think France will be up there,” he said. “Spain will be good. Maybe Portugal, which would put [Cristiano] Ronaldo up there with [Lionel] Messi.” (Messi’s Argentina are defending champions, and their victory provided Messi with the one trophy he was missing to crown one of the most spectacular all-time careers.) “But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think France are the team to beat.”
Tom Hawking is a Brooklyn-based writer, editor and football fanatic. Find him at his website.
