Well, not Americana, obviously, but similar sentiment:
There are still Working Mens’ Clubs round here, though they are falling like ninepins and being redeveloped. The nearby city of Coventry was once home to some serious manufacturing, notably motor vehicles, amongst other industries, but those factories are now long gone. I have worked in one of the old Working Mens’ Clubs in the city on several occasions and it’s just like stepping back in time.
First problem is getting into the place. There are no hi-tech entry systems, just one man as old as Methuselah, wearing a blazer bedecked with medal ribbons. It’s easier getting past a Rottweiler than The Captain for a non-member who is not being signed in by a member (except on Tuesdays and Saturdays which are strictly Members Only), and woe betide the member who is behind with his subs. I’ve learned to take EVERYTHING I may possibly need from the van to the club because of the grief caused if I have to nip back and get something. It’s like he’s never seen me before, despite me telling him I’m going to the van to get some tools, not 5 minutes previously.
The club itself is slap-bang in the middle of some grim tower blocks, set in its own grounds where the grass is well-manicured. I cannot imagine how many offers they must have rejected to sell off the field, it’s so out of place in the middle of all that concrete. You can tell from the state of it, NOBODY hops over the fence with a football for a kickabout, though it begs to be played on. Dogs dream about laying a cable on that soft turf.
Anyway, once you are past The Captain’s sentry post, you have stepped back into the 1970s, and perhaps beyond. Everything in there gleams - it hums with the smell of polish with the added faint whiff of ullage Worthingtons Bitter and takes me right back to my childhood when Grandad would take us and pop into his club for a swift pint on a Sunday morning and us kids would have a glass of flat coke and a packet of crisps between us. Framed pictures show that “all the names” have been there, Clubland Royalty like Ken Dodd, The Grumbleweeds and the Black Abbotts (without Russ, unfortunately), plus all the others who look like they swap band members regularly, and who keep the Mullet haircut alive.
The brasses sparkle, the carpet is spruce and you could eat your dinner off the floor in the Gents (if you were that way inclined). There are bog seats, locks and toilet paper - quite a novelty in some licensed premises these days. I’ve never seen a cleaner or maintenance man in there, it must all get done by magic.
Despite the maintenance regime, you can STILL smell the nicotine that has seeped into all the timbers, bars and furniture, despite the smoking ban which came in in 2007. It even appears to coat the posters advertising such Saturday night delights as “Our Old Favourite - Max Regal & Wife, singing all your favourites from the Hit Parade. 7.30pm in the Ballroom, Pie & Peas served 9pm, Bingo at 10. MEMBERS ONLY!!!” Shame you can’t be there folks, right?
The Ballroom is only used on Saturdays, and to even open the door is to invite people to pop up from hidden corridors asking what you are doing there (despite them having seen me the day before, and knowing that there’s no way an intruder is getting past The Captain). The PA system should be in a museum, has been wired up by the bloke who invented the Enigma machine, and they are still expecting to get another decade or so out of it. For the life of me I can’t work out how they manage to pipe a microphone from the Sentry Box (so the Captain can tell people their taxi has arrived) yet be able to mute it so he doesn’t inadvertently interrupt the bingo and cause a riot. (If you’ve ever seen a WMC Bingo game, it is NO joke. They all want that £100 prize and hate the person who wins)
They still have an original twin turntable disco deck, in perfect working order because you have to get written permission in triplicate to even open the cupboard it lives in. Between that and the mirrorball, it’s like experiencing a time-slip, it really does make me dizzy.
The same customers drink in there every day, sat alone sipping halves of Mild, sometimes getting together for a round or two of Dominoes (NO BETS ALLOWED!). They appear to be the same people who drank in my Grandad’s club 35 years ago, old men in 3 piece suits with watch chains. Also present will be the odd ruddy-faced man in his 20s, with one of those pencil spiv’s moustaches, wearing loafers and white socks, who is “on the sick”. Permanently.
Apparently it’s heaving with customers at night and weekends, but I have never plucked up the courage to try and gain entry at peak times, it’s a 2000 capacity venue!
Nothing, but NOTHING gets done in there without being put to the Committee, and only when quotes have been submitted by 3 companies. Even then there’s always someone to stand behind you to grumble that they weren’t told.
When I first saw “Phoenix Nights” I jumped, it’s a comedy but I’ve seen it all in real life, in THIS decade!! (It’s on Youtube for those that might not know it)
Just how a Working Mens’ Club survives to this day in such good health is a mystery to me, especially in such an economically devastated city as Coventry. It’s so archaic it makes your head swim, but I find it strangely reassuring, with all the petty rules and raffles and throwbacks to an era when people repsected the community authority and didn’t just say “Fuck You, I do what I want”. Despite everything, the people who run this place must still command respect. Possibly because “my Mum worked with that old boy, don’t piss him off because he will tell her”.
Every time I go past, I expect to see the boards up and a For Sale sign, but won’t be pleased when it does succumb. It’s a part of history, from the days when it was THE place for a factory worker and family to go at weekends (NO CHILDREN IN BAR, OR IN SNOOKER ROOM UNATTENDED. BY ORDER), and the odd evening too.
All the big places that existed purely for their employees - Jaguar, Triumph, Courtalds, Alvis etc seem to have disappeared, even though the clubs lingered on for some time afterwards. Thousands of people worked in the factories and for some it was their only social outing - imagine that, working with people all week and then having to see them down the club at the weekend!
It was the same up and down the country, and I dare say that the last will fizzle out in the not-too-distant-future. Shame.
we had our conference there and the out-of-town attendees stayed at the Cosmos Club as his guests.