The Riverside Sports Bar in Newport, has been crowned best in Wales for its work with local and grassroot sports teams at the PubAid Community Pub Hero Awards.
The pub was awarded Community Sport Hero Wales at the prestigious House of Commons event which recognises pubs and licensed premises which support grassroots sport in their communities or brings the community together via sporting events.
Riverside Sports Bar, owned by Stonegate, won for its support of local teams and using its platform as a sports focused business to raise awareness, funding and donations for local causes.
It sponsors Newport Corinthians FC, Newport City FC, Hartridge Rugby, Newport High School Old Boys, and a young local boxer fighting for his first belt in 2025. It has also supported a local swimmer and pool player. It is an official ‘Her Game Too pub’ which recognises gender equal bars that provide a safe space for women to watch sport and it has hosted several ‘Her Game Too’ events.
Daniel Harris from Riverside Sports Bar said: “We pride ourselves on being at the centre of the sporting community in Newport. We sponsor various different football teams, rugby teams and netball teams. We work with all different sporting organisations and aim to create and a warm and welcoming hub for people of all ages, sizes, backgrounds. We want everyone to enjoy sport, have good food and have a good time so it’s lovely to be recognised for that. We’re competing with bars, cinemas and restaurants for people’s entertainment spend so hopefully things like this stand us apart from our competition and shows people we’re the place to come and watch and enjoy sports in Newport.”
Pubs contribute over £40m each year to community sport. From kits, to sponsorship to hosting events the awards recognise pubs that showcase the important role pubs play to the health and wellbeing of their community.
Riverside Sports Bar was crowned at a prestigious award ceremony, sponsored by Matthew Clark, at the Houses of Parliament on 4 March. Daniel from the pub attended, along with industry leaders and MPs.
Des O’Flanagan, co-founder of PubAid, added: “The Community Pub Hero Awards highlight all the wonderful and invaluable work publicans do for their local communities and it’s heart-warming that pubs raise so much money for local and national charities. The standard or entry this year has been extremely high as many pubs continue to raise the bar when it comes to supporting their community so Riverside Sports Bar should be extremely proud of what they have achieved to be crowned the winner.”
PubAid, which organises the awards in association with Matthew Clark and the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, is the positive voice for UK pubs.
