The Dolphin makes it four in a row as the Echo Pub of the Year

The Farrindon hostelry has been named the Sunderland Echo’s Pub of the Year for the fourth straight time in a row.

Dozens of pubs across Sunderland were in the running for this year’s award, with regulars collecting vouchers from the paper to register their support.

As ever, we were inundated, with hundreds of slips returned over the three-week course of voting.

But as in previous years, there was one clear winner, with The Dolphin emerging head and shoulders above the rest.

Regular Peter foster is delighted to see the pub pick up its fourth consecutive title.

“We have won it four years on the bounce - 2015, 16, 17 and 18,” he said.

Peter played a crucial role in rounding up regulars to vote for the The Dolphin and is over the moon with the pub’s continued success.

“I did a lot of running about, getting the vouchers from the papers,” he said. “I feel very proud.”

Peter has become a permanent fixture at The Dolphin since first setting foot inside.

“I am 72 years old, but it is the first pub I have ever drunk in. I have been a club man all my life.

“I am a regular - I am in there about four nights a week.

Peter and a group of pals swapped the nearby Farringdon Social Club for their new watering hole: “About five years ago, we left Farringdon Club and came to The Dolphin,” he said.

“We have never looked back. We have been made so welcome. I have been going down there for five years.”

The club shut its doors last year, and The Dolphin welcomed a new influx of clients.

“I have friends who have left Farringdon Club when it closed and started coming down here,” said Peter.

He is in no doubt about the reason people feel so passionate about their local: “We have got a great landlord in Kelvin Lamb,” said Peter.

“He is such a nice bloke. He makes people feel so welcome.

“He is a brilliant person.”