G
George Bray
Guest
From The Independent newspaper today. I did submit this to the news section earlier, but nothing so far - Hence I decided to post it here. I was already aware of this room as I visited Salford Lads Club during its open day. I met the team behind the current project & they are all dedicated to helping the teenagers of Salford (lads & lasses btw) - Plus the sign has been totally repainted, looks shiny and new & all graffiti removed. I'll post latest photos on my website soon www.workingclassproduction.co.uk - Thx
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/news/story.jsp?story=489230
The transcript follows...
Heaven knows we're historical now - iconic youth club turns itself into a Smiths museum
09 February 2004
Farewell to this land's cheerless marches,
hemmed in like a boar between arches,
her very Lowness with a head in a sling,
I'm truly sorry but it sounds like a wonderful thing
- "The Queen is Dead"
How about this for an incongruous visitor attraction? A cheerful, heritage centre celebrating the glories of Mancunian miserablists the Smiths.
Such an attraction is to be delivered by a youth club featured on the inner sleeve of the band's 1987 album, The Queen is Dead.
The Salford Lads Club, which celebrated its centenary this week, enjoyed a rich history long before the band arrived. Paid for by a Victorian brewing family, it was opened in Ordsall by Lord Baden-Powell in 1904, three years before he founded the Boy Scouts.
But the album cover, featuring the band beneath the club's archway entrance, changed everything. The club has become a mecca for fans, who still arrive in vast numbers in accepted Morrissey manner - on the 33 bus from Manchester.
The club has decided to repay the band with a permanent presence. A room once reserved for the sport of fives, is to become the 'Smiths Room', full of memorabilia and photos. "They have contributed to making us a national treasure," said community artist Leslie Holmes, who is behind the project.
The concept was an improbable one when the band arrived to shoot the album sleeve in 1987. To guitarist Andy Rourke, the lads club was just another building. "We had only taken photos outside for our album," he said this week. "If I had realised the picture would become so important. I would have worn looser jeans."
The club's first impressions of the band were even cooler. The members' committee didn't want their club associated with the Smiths and, at one stage, pooled £800 to sue them for using the building without permission.
All that is now in the past, though. Rourke, who narrated a BBC Inside Out documentary on the place this week, said. "It's about time the club got paid their dues," he said. "They have had years of fans coming from all over the world to write on their walls and nick pieces of brick."
Manchester North of England
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/news/story.jsp?story=489230
The transcript follows...
Heaven knows we're historical now - iconic youth club turns itself into a Smiths museum
09 February 2004
Farewell to this land's cheerless marches,
hemmed in like a boar between arches,
her very Lowness with a head in a sling,
I'm truly sorry but it sounds like a wonderful thing
- "The Queen is Dead"
How about this for an incongruous visitor attraction? A cheerful, heritage centre celebrating the glories of Mancunian miserablists the Smiths.
Such an attraction is to be delivered by a youth club featured on the inner sleeve of the band's 1987 album, The Queen is Dead.
The Salford Lads Club, which celebrated its centenary this week, enjoyed a rich history long before the band arrived. Paid for by a Victorian brewing family, it was opened in Ordsall by Lord Baden-Powell in 1904, three years before he founded the Boy Scouts.
But the album cover, featuring the band beneath the club's archway entrance, changed everything. The club has become a mecca for fans, who still arrive in vast numbers in accepted Morrissey manner - on the 33 bus from Manchester.
The club has decided to repay the band with a permanent presence. A room once reserved for the sport of fives, is to become the 'Smiths Room', full of memorabilia and photos. "They have contributed to making us a national treasure," said community artist Leslie Holmes, who is behind the project.
The concept was an improbable one when the band arrived to shoot the album sleeve in 1987. To guitarist Andy Rourke, the lads club was just another building. "We had only taken photos outside for our album," he said this week. "If I had realised the picture would become so important. I would have worn looser jeans."
The club's first impressions of the band were even cooler. The members' committee didn't want their club associated with the Smiths and, at one stage, pooled £800 to sue them for using the building without permission.
All that is now in the past, though. Rourke, who narrated a BBC Inside Out documentary on the place this week, said. "It's about time the club got paid their dues," he said. "They have had years of fans coming from all over the world to write on their walls and nick pieces of brick."
Manchester North of England
