'Team McNeeney' celebrate 10 years of running The Oxford

Date published: 21 February 2023

The Oxford pub in Shawclough has been under the management of ‘Team McNeeney’ for 10 years.

The McNeeney family – Alison, Phil, Tom and Ella (middle sister Ria is a roofer) – took over The Oxford on 4 February 2013, with Alison and Phil having previously run pubs 30 years ago.

In the run-up to taking over the Whitworth Road pub, they began calling themselves ‘Team McNeeney’ – for the team behind the venue to be recognised.

Tom explained: “Over the years we’d seen so many great landlords make a pub successful and all that got the recognition was the name of the pub not the people behind it.

“Once you’ve spent enough time in the industry you realise it’s the people are what make somewhere great, and we wanted the team to be what we were known for the most here.

“What was just a gimmick turned into the cornerstone of everything we do; the name became bigger than the pub.”

Today, Team McNeeney is made up of the family, plus Mark Porter and Jason Collin on front of house, and Gary and Paul Garside heading up the kitchen team.

For the last eight years, the pub has held its own ever-popular Christmas markets, several days of stalls with foodies and gifts.

And the popular pub even has its own beer on tap, ‘One Last Dance’, brewed at Serious Brewing Company, to kick off a series of celebrations.

“Having a pub now is so different to how it was when we first opened, but then it’s always changing,” Tom continued. “You’ve got to move with the times and that’s one thing we’ve embraced.

“We’re always adding new things to the menu, we use social media to really connect with people, we have a real sense of humour and we’re constantly evolving, it’s not a trade you can stick with the old ‘well, that’s how we’ve always done it’ attitude.

“I think a lot of the success of the place is that we’re always looking for the next thing, we’re looking at restaurants in Manchester, pubs up in the lakes, looking at what’s trending on Instagram and wondering how we bring that to people who come here.

“I think in ten years we’ve faced everything from floods to fires to pandemics and we’ve come out swinging time after time, we’ve keep our heads held high and never been too proud to admit when we’ve made the odd mistake.

“It’s been a roller coaster but life’s too short to play it safe.”