So in my mind the Social Club or Working Mans Club is a tacky cheap bar with a Snooker table full of old white men, there I said it.
Our - North London - area is on the up & up and the old social club around the corner was knocked down to develop into 13 Private flats, expected to go for a good prices as we are 6 mins walk from a diet line into London Liv st.
Anyway, building has restarted after the Planning application was refused, changed and then accepted on the based that a Community Social Club remain part of the build, so now we have on the plans a bar, two functions rooms with 6 "affordable housing" flats behind with a "mews" between.
Would it really be something the upper working class Kryton household 😉 would want to visit for a Sunday pint (when we can)?
Why don’t you wait until it opens, pop your head around the door, and see what it is like?
only one way to find out.
a more interesting question to me is when did “build” become a noun in this use?
Either a good troll or you really need to get a new analyst.
I've been in a few WMC's and social clubs, the interiors of which have been very much as hot described.
But, it's the people that make a place much more than the decor and some have been a great laugh, others I've just been grateful to get out of alive...
Just take your racing post you’ll blend in.
Have a look at the plans and see if it has a flat roof.
I bloody lovey a WMC/Con club/whatever.
Cheap beer, snooker/pool/darts and just the most authentic setting to rock up and have a laugh/natter/few beers with mates for not very much money at all. Some of the regulars can be a bit 'odd' but you can ignore them and just order 4 pints and 4 bags of crisps/scampi fries for not far off a tenner and go and throw some spears.
At the end of the night, if you're somewhere a bit 'posh', you can grab a cling-film wrapped roll for the stumble home.
I don't think you'd like it.
I don’t think you’d like it.
I guess my nuance that I didn't describe hence the racial antiquity to my OP, is my mixed race family.
only one way to find out.
Fiar point, probably safest if I go an sample it myself once built ...
I guess my nuance that I didn’t describe hence the racial antiquity to my OP, is my mixed race family.
I thought it was a mildly-jovial class question. If it's a racism debate you want, then I'm grabbing my KP nuts and legging it out of here.
😀
Not want, but all things need to be considered.
The one near where I used to live. The Little Duck, had Ayingerbrau on tap for about £1. I could get hammered for less than a fiver and basically roll down a very steep hill to my front door. 19 year old me loved that place.
There was a no swearing rule though and it was full of grumpy old codgers playing dominoes. I knew most of them with it being a small town.
As others have said, pop in, see what the atmosphere is like.
Been to some really good ones, and a few “iffy” ones
A lot depends on mind set of committee / management / members ( usually in that order )
A well run one can be a good night out, if they get good acts / turns it can be a great night out.
A badly run one is a different story ...
go along with an open mind and be willing to enjoy yourself, you may well be pleasantly surprised.
I live these kind of places, their an ideal escape for a few hours from the snobs in gentrified areas.
😆
My teenage years were dominated by three things - Biking, Air Cadets and smashing back pints of Stella in our work Social Club.
I worked at a large residential epilepsy unit which had a staff social club. It was every cliche going
Flat roof, Check
Depressed underachievers staring into a pint class every night of the week - Check
Dire Straits on repeat on stereo - Check
Really good quality snooker room - Check
Dirt cheap (proper silly cheap) beer - Check
It was awesome. Whilst our mates were off at Uni my best mate Toby and me worked hard, got paid good money and tried our best to spend as much of it as we could through the bar. You could get monstered for under a tenner.
I even started working behind the bar, no-one knew, or cared, that I was only 17. Obviously I couldn't be trusted as I changed the music and spent most of the time still getting drunk with Toby.
When Toby died to cancer a couple of years ago aged 41 I looked back very fondly at our happy times in that good awful miserable but brilliant place.
Social clubs are cheap but the beer is usually shite so I go where I can get good ale
It will reflect the people that go in it, so very much up to you.
My first job was in my local WMC collecting pint glasses back in the late 80’s. Packed out every weekend for live bands, 600 people in the concert room upstairs, 100 men only in the bar talking, playing darts and snooker (3 full size tables and a pool table were booked out all night) I loved the atmosphere when a band was on, great fun.
Ironically or not very few of the blokes on ‘the committee’ actually worked and the politics were awful (I don’t mean party politics, but the usual no women in the bar and committee diktats) spent a couple of years there whilst doing sixth form (badly) a real education. I walked past the place yesterday and was recalling the nights when 800 would pile in on a Monday night way above the regs but the guy on the door was getting £2 for everyone crossing his path for entry fee.
I’m always pleased to see communities retain a local drinking spot at the expense of a developer flogging some knocked up flats creating a need for 30 non existent parking spaces and a loss of history.
London pub explorer on Instagram chronicles quite a few of these instances
@frnksinatra nice story mate, sounds like a great place.
If it's got a dog on the roof then definitely go in.
Social clubs are cheap but the beer is usually shite so I go where I can get good ale
Pretty much why I don’t bother with them, often their idea of real ale is John Smiths.
Some of the regulars can be a bit ‘odd’ but you can ignore @bearnecessities and just order 4 pints and 4 bags of crisps/scampi fries for not far off a tenner and go and throw some spears.
Social clubs , members clubs and WMC are great. You usually get a good pint and peace and quiet to drink it. Usually in a comfy chair.
I used to go in one in Sheffield every Sunday lunch without fail for years (Colley WMC). Some of the committee rules were frankly crazy (women weren’t allowed to vote for example and had to have a different membership).
But, loved going in and catching up with the same faces and hearing their tales. Always had a few rounds of bingo and open the box too. Everyone always sat in the same seats every week without fail, I used to get really quite upset on Christmas Day as there was always someone sat at our table who only came in once a year.
Anyway, go and check it out. I love them. Others may hate it.
If it is still there, don't go in the Whitburn miners club. I met a girl who came to study in Dundee and we got to the stage of me heading there to meet her family...Friday night there was an eye opener even for a scheme goblin like me.
Used to do scooter club nights in Whitburn Miners.
Almost as bad as Mayfield.
Used to do scooter club nights in Whitburn Miners.
Jumping all over the world.
Teenage years spent going in working clubs/ local con club to play snooker and drink flat beer, loved it. Some proper oddballs and weird rules but was worth it to play on a decent table for the price of the light and keeping the shandy's flowing, was definitely an education.
Snooker table was 20p for 20 mins. No 10p had to be 20. You got one shot after the light went out then it was get off or hand bags!
When I first started behind the bar Federation Brewery (long since swallowed up by John Smiths/Heineken or whoever) had a monopoly on the bar counter. Ordinary was 37p a pint (rainwater had a stronger ABV) Special was 46p. Lager was Tennants at 50p or local brew LCL was 52p. McEwans beers were probably slightly better but only drunk by those who had a job. I once served Jocky Wilson (I know! Amazing) who wasn’t happy we didn’t serve Harp lager.
I have other memories of the club scene that require first aid and occasionally ambulances, musically I saw some great bands who never made it beyond the club scene but were great entertainment nonetheless
Baxenden working men's club, Warrant's "She's my cherry pie" blaring away all summer, Badger playing there every week and dirt cheap Newcastle Brown. Brilliant place when we weren't down Jilly Rock World in Manchester. Happy days!
I used to go to my villages WMC (Oaks, in Ardsley). Firstly with my grandad to watch him play darts and drink squash, then as a 17 year old to drink port as it was 70p a glass.
Loved the place, but I think that because I’d met most of the regulars as a child and they new my family well I got it easy; some mates who went in there with me would basically be ignored all night.
Lad I went to college with could get us signed into the local Royal British Legion, made the flat roof WMCs seem tame. And expensive.
I don't understand the OP's post even after reading it twice. But, had one of my best nights out ever in a WMC/Social club or whatever they're called. Was working at a new place and went out drinking with a couple of colleagues. Ended up in one, was sceptical at first but what a night! Band on, place was packed everyone dancing and smiling and having fun. It was just before the smoking ban though. Went back a year or so later and it was rubbish. Most people stood outside smoking and a band playing to an empty room which smelled of farts and cheap aftershave.
Just take your racing post you’ll blend in.
Needs a whippet and a flat ‘at, and a packet of Woodbines. Possibly a wicker basket with a pigeon in as well, to really blend in...
If there have been dubious planning applications you may need to look out for Den Perry and any mysterious fires
I actually played a gig at a WMC a few years ago. I'm 34, so missed the thriving 'clubland' gig scene by several years (the money the acts earned during it's pomp was crazy) so this was a fairly tragic affair. They let me call the bingo during our break though which was fairly friggin mental.....absolutely hilarious though!
Culcheth British legion used to hire out their function room. In 1988/90 Our local warehouse party organiser/drug dealer booked it and brought in a massive sound system and DJs.
The juxtaposition between a room full of people ripped to the tits on industrial quantities of weapons grade Ecstasy, going mental to furious techno, and all the old blokes sat with their pints of mild, tutting and shaking their heads, was a joy to behold 😂
In the one that I played at, they were all sat on what looked like classroom plastic chairs 😂
It was so bizarre. This one had like a 600 capacity function room that was empty. A small function room that had a kids birthday party going on, then us playing to mainly OAP's doing acoustic covers of chart hits in the bar 😂
Don't worry, it's just a bit of "gentrification tax" for the developers. Yes they're being forced to build a WMC, but seeing as it's going to be hemmed in by yuppy flats the odds are it will be forced to close within a year and re-open as a Vegan Lebanese/Pie 'N' mash/sushi fusion restaurant... You'll love it.
Whitburn? Posh as ****..
Now Skerne Park WMC in Darlington....
Galashiels had a Ukrainian club which put all the wmc's to shame. Up a rickety stair bare room. 140proof vodka. Ended many a night at 7pm. Fortunately quite close to the ambulance station.
My mum's side of the family are from Newcastle and there was a thriving club scene up there when i was a kid, so many memories. My grandad was a quite well known at the time as he'd been in a band before the war and then again after, and he was in the house band at a few clubs over the years .
He reckoned they were proper musicians too, not like the bands that only played their own songs, he'd be doing backing for the 'turns' that these clubs put on most nights, certainly weekends, and they'd turn up a bit before show time, hand out sheet music and the band would just play it pretty much on sight.... no rehearsals to speak of. Then gather it up and on to another club, if you were warm up quality!
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/gallery/working-mens-clubs-7134378
I don't remember even what clubs they were, because although they had names (one was St Peter's I remember, aka the 'Bottom' Club - other being the Top and the Middle based on their location - the Bottom club's at the bottom of Raby Street) - but wherever we went for Sunday drinks my Grandad wouldn't have to buy his own. Just as well because he'd have been bankrupt - he'd have a pint on the go in the (men only) bar and another on the go with the family in the saloon bar! My grandma would drink 2 halves at the same time (pints being unladylike) and match his saloon bar intake 1:1.
After he retired and I was at University down the road in Durham I'd still go and see them at weekends. Depending what train I got, he'd either be at the door with his coat on (aka 'Hello Professor') or already have gone off to the Buffs (Wallsend RAOB) having paid for my entry and signed me in at the door. He could still do 4 or 5 pints in the hour before we went back for grandma's sunday roast at which we'd fall asleep in the chairs, coming round only for me to get a train back to Durham (or if I was lucky/unlucky my cousin would give me a lift in his Cavalier Sri at crap-extracting speed) and my Grandad to head back to the Buffs for some proper drinking.
That doesn't answer the question does it - other than to say I'd love to be able to drink another shitty pint of meter pumped Federation Special in an oversized glass with Jake.
I grew up in county Durham and my two memories of WMC - the annual leek show which culminated in the most amazing vegetable soup being sold in a polystrene cup for 10p. It was a massive deal in the town and the quality of the vegetables was incredible.
Memory no 2 - aged 18 going to Ferryhill WMC on Friday nights for a disco. The function room was rammed with hundreds of people, all having a good time and getting worse for wear.
They are just like pubs and vary between "I wouldn't be caught dead in there" and "wow, chilled place and the drinks were how much ?????"
I will always have fond memories of them are they were an integral part of my childhood and young adulthood.
Kryton, from the WMC's I've been it it would be ok for a pint with some mates or a quiet drink by yourself. But not sure they are type of place I'd be wanting to take the family to.
@oldmanmtb2 you are a braver man than me. I never had the nerve to go in there!
But, it’s the people that make a place much more than the decor and some have been a great laugh, others I’ve just been grateful to get out of alive…
MY very limited experience is that this is it. Go with someone who is "in" and it can be good fun. Turn up as an outsider and its like anywhere, quite uncomfortable. Much like some county pubs if you're not a "local" (pub local not location local) it feel awkward on your own.
"I thought it was a mildly-jovial class question. If it’s a racism debate you want, then I’m grabbing my KP nuts and legging it out of here."
Forget the nuts, grab yourself some of those Scampi flavoured things that come in a yellow packet!
My parents live at the end of the northern line, there was a big residents club around the corner from them. Bit incongruous as it was real suburbia. When I was a teenager used to go with them on a Sunday afternoon occasionally. All fairly bland tbh, kids and families in it. It was a big old place, two big bars, compulsory snooker room, function area. I think like a lot of pubs it just went out of fashion and I think it eventually closed. Not sure residents clubs which are just shebeens are viable anymore.
jamon Iberico scratchings anyone?
Working men’s clubs and the like vary tremendously. I’ve been great ones and scary ones! I tend to like them as a rule but haven’t been in one for a few years.
What you really need as a local pub that has Sunday lunchtime strippers. (That is a blast from the past. Not seen that for twenty years.)
Gigged at loads during the 90s, as mentioned the juxtaposition of playing pretty much any genre of music on a stage with a portrait of the queen behind, and those tinselly curtains like in Phoenix Nights is odd now but was fairly normal then.
My local WMC hosts a monthly alternative cabaret night. I vaguely remember the turning of midnight on my 50th birthday drunkenly lurching round the dance floor to She Sells Sanctuary clutching an Airfix kit that I had won in the raffle.
Can't wait to get back there.
What you really need as a local pub that has Sunday lunchtime strippers. (That is a blast from the past. Not seen that for twenty years.)
I think you've spotted why my Grandad had a pint on the go in each bar.......
I was once inadvertently caught in the middle of a western style bar fight and shootout in the lounge bar of the Colville Park club in Motherwell.
I was there for a works night out and it also happened to be the regular Country and Western night at the club. People take that sort of thing pretty seriously and spend thousands on their outfits and have whole role play personas. There was line dancing, quick draw competitions, the whole nine yards
Except it all stoppped at half time for the bingo....A truly serious piece of business.
Then someone was accused of cheating. They were called a dirty, low down, good for nothin' son of a snake. Harsh words were spoken. Tables were tipped over. Punches were thrown. Part time school dinner ladies / squaws named Running Deer were holding back cowboys named Black Bart.
Then the shootin' irons came out. The air was thick with the smell of the blank cartridges from deactivated replica Colt 45's.
I was deeply disappointed that no one was thrown through a plate glass window to land in a water trough but you know, you can't have everything.
People are brilliant.
I was deeply disappointed that no one was thrown through a plate glass window to land in a water trough
If they were, just as a point of order do you have to sign back in and show your membership card at the saloon doors again? If a member's guest are you expected to pay twice?
"Are those moccasins?... Sorry chief, not tonight"
So in my mind the Social Club or Working Mans Club is a tacky cheap bar
Obviously. It's normally built by a mate of the committee for £20.00 and a few pints on a Sunday morning....And could you be done by 1 o'clock as we can set up a trestle table, but Sheila has to go by 12.30 and we need the bar to be up and running by then..
Great places.
Then there is the "fives and threes" which for those not in the know is a complex game of domino's and could descend into fisty cuffs....
I think my experience of working behind the bar in one 25 years ago has put me off forever. I'm actually black-balled for life from being a member of this particular club, or even entering the premises unless it's part of a post wedding or funeral event. Technically I'm barred from about half a dozen other local clubs too, but they were always having 'beef' over skittles money, or which club chipped another club £2 on some coach trip to Spain or something so I doubt that's still in force.
You'd think the fact it's been a quarter of a century, or that those who barred me are all now very dead would mean it's all a bit moot now, but I doubt it. I'm sure 'the book' is still kept under lock and key somewhere. It was very odd when I went in for my Grandfathers wake, 13 years after I last stepped foot in the place to have a man I'd never met before, put his hand on my shoulder and, very politely call me by my full name and say "We know you're only here for your Grandad, so if you behave yourself, you can stay, but you'll have to leave as soon as the event does".
I think there's probably a market for a 'modern club', one thing is for sure, in the small town I used to live in, the pubs have closed, there were 3 pubs and The club, the last pub has just been shut down, unable to survive Covid and the brewery being bought out. It was always rough and ready and was never going to evolve into the all-seater, family dining sort of place most 'pubs' are now, where as the club, covid not withstanding is still going.
Maybe they have modernised over the last 20 years, but I doubt it, back in the 90s they were still fighting tooth and nail to protect the ideas and norms of the 50s. The saddest part is that, thanks to the wonders of social media, I get to see my old School friends evolving into carbon copies of their parents, who were copies of their parents. They look the same, they say the same things and sit in the same seats as their ancestors. It's like Palookaville with fading red velvet seating.
the annual leek show
Were women allowed to participate?
Whitburn Miners burnt down 10 years ago.
Might have visited once or twice for a private function.
My brother used to frequent the Gala Ukrainian club, whilst at Uni!
Jumping all over the world.
eh?
In my early 20's I visited 2 or 3 a week as part of my job was surveying for a company that 'remodeled' the really shit buildings into equally shit buildings with brass rails instead of chrome..........
In my early 30's I visited 2 or 3 a weekend as part of my music duo for years on end.......its was really grim but good fun with my buddy
I would only go into one if you paid me, its been like that all my life 🙂
One of the best gigs I went to was Magnum, in their wilderness years mid 90s, at the Rochdale Transport Social & Athletic Club. Tiny venue with the band using the Gents loos as their changing room. Was a cracking night out and well worth the journey from Cambridge. But yes, outside of 80s rock bands playing, I'm unlikely to frequent social clubs etc.
Local wmc here had a line on the floor near the bar that women weren't allowed to cross. And this is within the last 15 years or so when I used to go in with my then girlfriend's (now wife's) family.
Happy Memories of the British Legion in Jesmond (Newcastle)
LCL (Lose Control lager) on tap, great snooker table upstairs, next to a fire exit so you smoke a joint.
but also some of the most rightwing, prejudiced people I've ever met, I stayed well clear of them.
When I was at Uni my girlfriend’s Dad and his mate used to book club acts. Every Saturday night that we spent at her parent’s followed much the same formula. We’d all dress up in suits and best frocks, and set off to meet up at Alan (Les) Parker’s house. We’d then set off and collect the fees for the three or acts they had in the immediate area (Leeds and Wakefield) and have half a shandy in each club just to be polite. Les or Noel would choose a favourite act to sit through, so we’d end up listening to yet another “Fabulous Boy/Girl duo” at East Leeds WMC or Knottingly Wheeltappers or wherever, then head off to Napoleons Casino in Leeds for the free coffee and sandwiches while Les played blackjack.
The singing acts were almost inevitably accompanied by the same guy in a brown suit playing a keyboard, and there was always at least two pairs of women dancing to the music at the front.
We’d then go and have a nightcap at Les’s club on Vicar Lane before heading back to his house for fish n chips which he’d collect on the way back.
Heady times. Both Noel and Les were shortarses and I was a hefty six-footer so they always asked me to go with them to any clubs where they’d had issues with payment for the acts. God knows what they thought I’d do, but it never really went wrong.
One abiding memory was a flat roof club in Leeds near the hospital (East Leeds WMC?) where a bloke near the bar asked Les if he wanted to buy some beef. He asked how much and the guy said if he bought it all he’d include the van it came in.
The singing acts were almost inevitably accompanied by the same guy in a brown suit playing a keyboard,
Oi! That was my Grandad!
Don't you still have to be a member or at least affiliated to get in to one these days? That was the reason the booze was cheap from memory? If so it'll probably be frowned upon if you tip up without membership Kyton and spend your time looking down your nose at the regulars.
I've been in loads over the years (especially when playing Rugby League), plenty good, plenty bad, some terrible. Usually decent enough places to have a drink and a chat or a bit of quiet. Last one I was a member of was Skipton WMC when I lived round the corner and used to call in on the way to town. It was (is) a really well kept club and didn't suffer from teenagers shouting or fighting so was a pleasant place for a beer on a weekend night. To join it was a full sit down with some of the committee after being proposed by a member though and an application form!