He had been offered trials with Bury and Burnley football clubs and had hopes of moving to the big time.

But his wife Linda had given him an ultimatum.

"You have got to decide whether you want to be a football player or a landlord because no-one knows you here," she said.

After starring in the Knutsford High school team his sports teacher Dave Roberts told him he would make it as a football player.

But Tony remembered the hours he spent waiting for a soccer scout to knock on his door and he chose to give up the game.

Tony was born and brought up in Warren Avenue, Knutsford.

"There was a great spirit on the street with lots of young families and kids to play with," he said.

A fellow pupil at Egerton school made contact by dropping a brick on Tony's head.

"For some reason we became best friends and still are - it must have been the bang on the head," he said.

The Warren Avenue kids turned the street into a football pitch in the winter and cricket field in the summer.

They formed the Real Warren and played on the Heath against Westfield Drive Wanderers and Tatton Villa.

They explored the fields around the Avenue until nightfall and organised circuses for their parents each year.

"It's different nowdays - it's all computer games. All they explore now is the Internet," he said.

Tony was 17 when he fell for wife-to-be Linda at the Angel discoteque.

But he had competition - she was already seeing someone and friend Brian Deeley was also interested.

"There was a big rivalry between who was going to take Linda home. She ended up taking us both home," he said.

Tony was the more persistent and married Linda four years later.

But tragedy soon struck when father Brian - a painter and decorator - had a heart attack and died aged 47.

Then one of Tony's two sisters Anne suffered a brain haemorrage and died at 23.

"It was terrible. I went to pieces and my mother was in terrible shock," he said.

But Linda became pregnant and new life helped relieve the pain.

The new father began work as a boiler maker at ICL Computers in Winsford before moving to ICI Chemicals at Northwich seven years later.

It was another seven years and during the early 80s recession when a friend offered Tony to become landlord of The Ram's Head in Newton-on-the -Willows.

"Morale at ICI was low and Linda was fed up at home looking after the kids - Laura and Matthew," he said.

The then 32-year-old took over a pub that had been run as a private club for over 50s.

But the young couple gave the place a new look and were less restrictive.

"It just took off - we ended up making too much money," he said.

Greenhalls Brewery took the pub back five years later paying the Knutsford man a large sum of money.

And the Davies family were left without a home or job.

But friend and Greenhalls' director Gerry Doyle promised to find them a pub in Cheshire.

"We were offered a few others but we waited for the Railway Inn to come up," he said.

The landlord's great aunt had been licencee of the pub in Mobberley between 1931 and 1972 and Linda was hankering after a return to the Knutsford area.

Tony rents the site from Greenhalls and collects profit made through sales.

"I prefer to mix with the customers and to know what the regulars drink. Many pubs in Knutsford are run by faceless managers," he said.

"The Railway Inn is ideal but for two reasons," he said.

It's all hands to the glasses when either Concorde or Pakistan International Airways planes' take off from Manchester Airport.

He remembers the Tristar jet with two engines traced by the Knutsford Guardian.

"I thought it was coming down. It was so close you could see the pilot in the cock pit."

The Manchester City supporter also has a few problems with drunks ordered off at Mobberley station.

One drunk walked naked into the landlord's garden and stole his trousers and daughter Laura's jumper from the washing line. The drunk then walked into Knutsford police station and confessed "I think I have murdered somebody."

Police scoured the area and found a woman's body with stab wounds in Altrincham.

But Tony and his family are happy in the country and have turned the pub into a community focal point.

The Manchester City supporters club has weekly meetings at the pub on a Thursday with Paul Power and Colin Bell recently making speeches.

He also organises charity events with pub discos and competitions on Tony's bowling green.

He says his succees as a landlord is down to the advice he was given nearly 20 years ago.

"You have got to be a diplomat, aristocrat and doormat in that order because people will tell you things and you have to be very careful not to tell anyone."

Tony, now 48, still plays football with some of his old Warren Avenue mates for the Railway Inn Vets in the Ilford veterans league.

But after 28 years happily married, he is in no doubt he made the right choice in life.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.