GOOD TIMES: Barrowford WMC in need of more glory days
FROM bingo and beers to pool and pies, the old fashioned working men’s club has been a fixture in towns and cities all over the UK for over a century but in recent years we’ve simply stopped going. Is the traditional club an outdated trend or an important part of British culture? Jonathan Brown investigates...
Having lived just 200 yards away from David Street Working Men’s Club in the small northern town of Barrowford for most of my adult life, it says a lot that I’ve never actually been in the place. It’s always seemed to me like a secret lair for the over 50s and to this day it’s a somewhat scary pebble-dashed fortress but at a time when it is believed around four working men’s clubs are closing every week, surely these perceptions need to change.
Approaching the dominating doorway I can’t help but feel a little nervous and as I walk through the entrance I’m met with a room full of speculative stares. Clearly the under 35 is a rare commodity at David Street. Taking a glance around it’s a surreal sight to behold, the atmosphere is sterile, it’s almost like being in a waiting room. There’s a redundant ‘stage’ with cringingly garish gold tinsel behind it, a derelict dartboard that looks as if it’s never been used despite the majority of the crowd of ten punters looking like retired darts players.
All you can hear is ‘Take Me Out’ on the TV and the odd outbreak of cackling from the hardcore members in the corner. It seems like I’m not the only one too scared to go in.
So maybe it’s just the look of the place and people’s pre-conceived ideas that have caused David Street and clubs like it to become decreasingly popular in recent years.
To my surprise the face behind David Street is not Brian Potter, of Phoenix Nights fame, but instead I am met with the embodiment of the pub land lady, Pam Black. She’s a short, stocky woman who could pass easily pass as the club's bouncer never mind stewardess. Yet despite appearances she is an immensely friendly and passionate lady, who wants nothing more than for David Street to re-live its prime.
“It’s a fact, WMC’s are definitely in trouble but we’re doing okay,” Pam says with a sigh. She continues, “The problem is getting people to come through the doors after you’ve paid artists to perform, it’s a risky game because if we mess up, the club will pay for it.”
In fact David Street pays for acts once every three weeks to come and perform and hopefully pack out the venue but picking the right acts is a challenge in itself. Unfortunately after seeing the far from blockbuster ‘Irish Battle of the Bands’ advertisement from the week before on the notice board I can see why the club wasn’t packed to the rafters that night. Thankfully for me the club won’t be featuring any Daniel O’Donnell tribute acts tonight however.
The club can actually hold up to 100 people but on a night like this, with a sparse crowd littering the function room that you could count on your fingers, you can infer that Pam is keeping her cards close to her chest. The clues as to how they are doing are there for all to see, most of the spotlights in the ceiling aren’t working and there is a plug-in heater in the middle of the room because the heating is ‘broken’.
The fact that people have many preconceptions about WMC’s surely can’t help but Pam is quite proud to say that David Street is traditional. “Yes we are old fashioned and we do still have bingo and cabaret artists but that is what people love about clubs like this one. We are very welcoming to younger people though, we even let people order in takeaways and eat in the function room, it’s like having an extended family,” she explains.
And I can sympathise with her, the atmosphere of a WMC is a lot quieter than that of a pub and seemingly more sociable, the characters you find in places like David Street are fantastic. Take Frank for example. The larger than life forty-something having seen me at the bar chatting to Pam is adamant that I’m Casanova in disguise, shouting, “Don’t give him your phone number Pam!” These people make the place what it is but after all the club itself is over a hundred years old and some of the punters aren’t far from that milestone themselves by the look of it. Glancing round some are even asleep.
Having never been in the club before, I have to admit that I was expecting a far icier reception. But if anything, a new person being there just intrigues the regulars and before you know it you’re bombarded with questions and you feel instantly welcome. Despite this the perception still remains amongst many that unless you’re called Trevor, Graham or Shirley and you’ve worked as some sort of engineer or you’re an expert bingo player, you’re likely to feel as welcome as a horse in a nightclub in a place like this. But during these difficult economic times clubs like David Street can’t afford to be selective.
The WMC in Britain is in crisis because of far more than the odd bad tribute act or because of the 80s decor however. In the past decade social change has simply left the old fashioned club behind and now it is struggling to pick up the pieces. The smoking ban, recession and cheapening supermarket prices have driven people away from traditions and into less communal, cheaper ways around these modern day hurdles, even pubs are feeling the pressure at present. The heyday of the WMC, it appears, has long gone judging by the fact that since the 1970s the number of registered working men’s clubs in the UK has been nearly halved and the number of clubs is continuing to drop, so are they really worth saving?
As I sit pouring the rest of my pint can into a glass in Barrowford’s very own version of the Phoenix club pondering the question, it dawns on me how important to some people the working men’s club really is. You just don’t get random people coming up and introducing themselves to you in even the most friendly pub. WMC’s are innocent, lessening communities of people who simply enjoy the familiarity and sociability that comes with a membership. These clubs are a glance into days when you left your front door ajar and if the neighbours walked in for a chat you’d welcome them with open arms.
Because of this it seems Pam is as determined as ever to revive the club’s fortunes and she is adamant that they are starting to reel in a new generation of customers of which Matt Burton is one. The 18 year-old student and his friends have only ventured into David Street a handful of times but it seems Pam and the club’s committee are pinning their hopes on youngsters like them.
“As much as this place is a dead most of the time, to be honest, the main reason we come is for a couple of cheap drinks and to play pool because there’s never a cue for the table,” he explains. “We do feel a little bit out of place when we’re in here and just go straight up to the pool room, they are so trusting that they even gave us the keys to upstairs the first night we ever came down,” he says.
So for the likes of Matt at least the appeal of being associated with a WMC is minimal which doesn’t bode well for the future and it has to be said that a lot of locals probably wouldn’t notice if the tinsel clad club called it a day. In contrast the regulars would certainly have a thing to say about that, as for many clubs such as David Street memberships go back generations.
But as Pam admits herself, the characters that have kept David Street alive in recent times are themselves becoming few and far between. “There’s a lot dying off and we are actively trying to get new people in, we’ve even bought a Nintendo Wii which will hopefully bring more customers in,” she optimistically explains.
Yet with all this in mind you can’t help but feel a little bit downbeat about the future of such clubs that have decades upon decades of history and tradition behind them. The youth seem disinterested and the nation is hardly calling out to see more cheesy variety acts at present, so this may well be a final farewell to the humble working men’s club.
However there is a glimmer of hope as far as Pam is concerned, as the club has started to go down the route of renting out the venue itself for private functions a lot more recently, such as for Christmas parties and birthday celebrations.
She asserts: “The future for us at the moment is in putting on private functions because we just don’t get enough punters on a regular night whether it be a weekend or midweek. If we attract enough functions we’ll do okay.”
As the night winds down and the punters clear their tables the community spirit of the good old fashioned working men’s club rears its head. The camaraderie of the place and willingness to support each other is a humbling flashback to a bygone era and despite it being left behind by social change I’m quite sure that the togetherness of the WMC is more than worthy of a place in modern society even if Daniel O’Donnell impressionists aren’t.
