Skyrack Leeds review: a dependable home for sports fans and drinkers of Headingley

And by the seventh stop, your average challenger on the legendary pub crawl might be without the faculties to process their surroundings beyond ‘pint’, ‘chair’ and ‘toilet’.

From a cursory glance at Wikipedia, though, your more curious (or perhaps teetotal) Otley Runner might discover that the pub takes its name from a bygone administrative district - encompassing, among other settlements, Adel, Kippax and Ilkley - named after a huge tree which formerly played host to meetings.

It feels appropriate, then, that the venue with its namesake should continue to serve as a sanctuary for drinkers and sports fans alike.

Today, as well as being an approximate midway point for Headingley’s notorious drinking challenge, the Skyrack is one of most reliable sports bars in the wider area, showing rugby, football, formula one, cricket and more.

In the shadow of the homes of Leeds Rhinos and Yorkshire County Cricket, it is difficult to find a seat without a view of one of the pub's many screens - which is just as well, as it can become quite crowded for some of the bigger fixtures (not to mention their legendary Sunday night karaoke sessions).

But even on quieter occasions, fans feel at home with sports memorabilia adorning the walls alongside Kaiser Chiefs lyrics and assurances that ‘it’ll be reet’ amid vistas of wallpaper-vistas of Beckett Park and Leeds Corn Exchange - decor that refuses to forget the history of the place it's situated in. Pleasingly lit, the outside area pays further tribute to local sporting heroes with quirky wooden booths named ‘Bielsa’s box’ and ‘The ‘Burrow’.

On my visit, the staff are recovering from a bumper Bank Holiday weekend of Otley Runners by dusting down the spirit bottles and cleaning the brass of the bar’s plentiful taps. Taking your eye briefly off the gleaming bottles of Ciroc and Grey Goose atop the bar, you'll find spectacular pump clips advertise a wide range of beers and ciders sold for around a fiver a pint.

If you can move past the fact that the Guiness pours aren’t perfect and the toilets are sometimes inexplicably a furnace, the Grade II listed building is now home to a reliable little boozer - catering to sports fans, Otley runners and Yorkshire folk alike, Skyrack is a bar that knows what it is and does it very well.