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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!