Crisis in clubland

TONY McKinstry recalls the good old days

THEY used to be the heart and soul of working communities - places of fun and laughter where the working man and his family could be sure of a friendly welcome and a cheap pint after a hard day down the pit or on the production line.

It wasn't only the cheap beer, either. Your local affiliated was a social centre, too: and a source of pride. It was owned and run by its members, for its members. To get a place on the management committee meant you were somebody. And in an age when money was scarce and times were hard, the entertainment laid on at your club beat anything else that was on offer.

But have the working men's clubs had their day?

News that the Layerthorpe WMC in York looks set to close after seeming to have pulled itself back from the brink has clearly come as a real blow to committee members.

Just why John Smith's has decided to pull the plug on the club the brewery won't say. "But I'm very bitter, very bitter," says club committee secretary Ann Barker. "A lot of the members are very upset. Nobody has come and told them or let them know anything."

But Layerthorpe isn't the only club to have been suffering difficulties. Times are changing; and too many clubs, perhaps, aren't changing with them.

"Clubs are dying," admits Keith Allen, secretary of the York branch of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union (CIU), to which clubs are affiliated.

"There's not many younger people coming in these days. They used to be for the whole family, but people just aren't going in now. I don't know why."

Part of the reason, thinks Ann Barker, is that some clubs are too old-fashioned and set in their ways. They still offer great value and a great atmosphere, she insists - but it is the younger people they are failing to attract.

Many have been trying to modernise - bringing in fashionable bottled beers, booking 'turns' that will appeal to younger audiences - but it's not enough. There are too many rules and regulations, which younger people won't put up with, says Ann. "It's always you cannot do this, you cannot do that," she says. "Only members are allowed in. You cannot swear. Younger people won't accept that. They're going to places where they have music, they can stand at the bar and do what they want." Places like some of the new designer bars in the city centre."

The other big bugbear for Ann is the status of women. One of the great advantages of the working men's clubs, says Keith, is that if you're a member, you are assured of a warm welcome in an affiliated club wherever you go - whether it's Blackpool or Surrey. The trouble is, that only applies if you're a man. "Women can be members of their own club, but can't go into another club," says Ann. "That will have to change."

It's an example of precisely the kind of old-fashioned attitude that's probably putting off many younger people. Another, perhaps, is the refusal to ban smoking. "If clubs had to ban smoking, I don't think they would survive!" says Keith Allen, horrified. But doesn't a smoky atmosphere put off some younger clients? Maybe, he admits, grudgingly.

For Keith, though, there is more to the decline of the working men's clubs than smoky bars and the way they treat women. Back in their heyday, he points out, there was very little else for working men and their families to do than go to their local club.

He joined the Groves club in 1964, because it had a great angling section. But there were plenty of other activities for club members in York - including the oldest quiz league in the world.

But none of that, says Keith, can compete for younger people with glass-fronted designer bars and continental holidays - and, if you must have a night in, home videos and cheap bottled beer from the local supermarket.

"They've been a tradition for a hundred years," he says. "But they're a dying breed. It is sad."

It's not all doom and gloom.

Some clubs are thriving and putting the lie to the fear the working men's club has seen its day. A year ago Acomb WMC, which celebrated its centenary in 1998, was celebrating again after being chosen as Club Of The Month by the CIU. It's still going strong says club steward Geoff Simpson: with people waiting to snap up places as soon as they become available.

Another club which has seen a turnaround in fortunes is the Tramways in Mill Street. A year ago, the club was struggling. But now, with a lick of paint and a new steward, it is booming again. Membership is up, and on good nights when there's a decent 'turn' booked, the place can be heaving.

"It's been hard work, but we've pulled together," says vice president Malcolm Robinson. "And all of a sudden, people have started coming back." He shows me round the club's concert hall and dance floor proudly. "When this place is full, it's a fabulous atmosphere," he says. "And when anybody's on stage, they always say it is a pleasure to be here, because everybody is so friendly. That speaks for itself." It certainly does.

Those were the days my friend...

I REMEMBER when working men'sclubs were fizzing with fun and ale. When you couldn't get a seat in the concert hall if you arrived after 7.30pm on a Saturday or Sunday night to see the 'turns'.

When barmaids used to put up to 100 half pints in pint glasses before the doors opened at 6.30pm ready to top 'em up and save time as the thirsty throng descended on the bar.

That was Middlesbrough 30 years ago when the town had great working men's clubs and even working men.

Now the belching steelworks have all but vanished and the shipyards have gone down the Swannee - well, the Tees to be precise - along with my delirious, oft hazy, well-spent youth.

Those were the days when your mum and dad put your name up on the club's blackboard to play snooker when you were still in the womb.

A time when women could not go to the bar to be served; their men had to 'get the drinks in, pet'.

Those were the days when the 'bairns' went on an the annual club trip to Whitley Bay with five bob (25p), a pork pie, sausage roll, filled with a sense of great adventure to be leaving the lung-clogging sooty smells of the Boro far behind.

Being the son of a bone fide 'filleted' club member - my dad was a lifelong card-carrying Working Men's Club and Institute Union member, to which all clubs were affiliated or 'filleted' - I felt there was nowhere I couldn't go for a sneaky half shandy and a packet of crisps with my parents. Saltburn, British West Hartlepool, Bolden Colliery... the world was my winkle, if not my oyster.

Club life opened doors to learning... cards, darts, doms, cribbage, snooker and how to spot puffed-up, blue-suited committee men on the Oliver Twist - fiddling blind cards, raffles, beer draws and the like.

I even saw the real Ruby Murray ('Softly, softly turn the key') before she became a curry.

Working men's clubs were palaces of pulsating family fun, laughter, camaraderie, family fueds and, as I grew to appreciate, offered cheaper beer than pubs.

They still do and I still belong to one in York. But to be honest I've seen more life in a chapel of rest.

Updated: 10:37 Tuesday, August 14, 2001