The great Sheffield down Town pub run 1960-80ish

[TORONTONY]

You`re wrong there Toronto!! I just couldn`t resist the temptation.

As for the pavilion, it was still there the last time time i went to the Lane.

 

United supporters have a better selection of pubs to go in than we have at Hillsborough.

Once did a pub crawl down Bramall Lane and back along London Road one Christmas Eve, with some of my mates who were "Blades"

We started off with a pint in the Sheaf House, then decided it would be better to stick to half`s.

I think the pub count came to Fourteen, we downed the last half in the Great Britain on John Street.

 

Yes if you were downtown and wanted to get around ,halves it was.You hardly ever saw pint pots on the downtown circuits. That trip you made was my in laws haunt in later years, the Barrel and Tramway were their split locals.

By the way Wednesday were not that bad in the timeframe I was talking about. One of my tripe fests followed the best live football game I have ever seen , I think, AUG 1968, 5-4 over Man Utd. down2-4 at half time. Amazing match and no TV cameras there.

[samssong]

Another great Working mans club where I was member was The Smithywood at Woodseats.

 

Evan as late in the day as the early 90's you had to be in this club by 8.30 pm on a Saturday and Sunday night to be sure of a seat in the packed concert room .

 

The club always had a group on stage at the weekends with some of the best turns in the North of England often meaning a long que forming before the doors were opened.

 

The club secretary was a moustachioed bloke called Brian Davy and Brian ruled the club with an iron fist making sure that only the best turns were booked and that the beer was kept to a high standard .

Due to Brians vigilance the club was still drawing large crowds in a time when many of its competitors had lost their way, a sad decline that has continued until today when many of Sheffields finest have closed or are struggling to keep going.

 

The Smithywood had two main rooms ,the Concert and the Lounge ,these rooms were like chalk and cheese with the lounge having plush seating ,chandeliers, and Turner portraits on the wall.

 

On the other hand the concert room resembled a cowboy saloon with three legged tables surrounded by up to eight or ten gate backed chairs .

On a good turn night the amount of people that would surround the small tables was amazing as people who had turned up late squeezed in to loud comments from those who had got there early to secure a good view of the acts.

 

I personally had one of the best new years eve entertainment ever in the club arriving at 6pm to claim a good seat ,

By 7.30 there was not a seat to had any where in the club and the group came on to massive applause .

 

By 9.30 every man ,woman and some who were not sure was up and dancing , some on the rickety tables and others doing the conga through the lounge where even the lounge lizards joined in .

 

Loud chants of Wednesday and United supporters echoed through the club and when this banter got a bit out of hand around 10.30 pm a big fieght irrupted with both men and women settling a few old scores in the melee .

 

Our table had grown to around twenty friends and family by this time and we were fully enjoying the cowboy scene going on around us without us getting involved as most of the feights were harmless enough and would be described as handbags at ten paces really.

 

Any way Brian Davy jumped ont the stage and grabbed the mike from the groups singer (who had just carried on singing throughout the whole scrap ) and announced that if we all din't sit down and behave he was shutting the bar for the night and we could bugger off home.

Talk about a comic moment !!! it was as though a bomb had dropped , complete silence and then every Tom Dick and June stood up and clapped and cheered Brian .

The feighters all started to embrace each other and make up ,the tables were righted and the group lead us into old langs ine or whatever they call it .

 

Clubs were the back bone of a hard working Sheffield and just a few years later Brian died and the Smithywood shut its doors leaving only memories of a great venue run by a smashing bloke.

Edited December 16, 2016 by samssong

[katerina]

What a great and funny thread. Didn't go to any of the pubs much but remember them. Keep it coming. Happy days.

[samssong]

Walkley Working Mans club Providence Road Walkley .

 

It rolls of the tongue like an old friend dun't it.

 

I moved to Walkley in 1965 settling in Hoole Street ,the nearest pubs were the Royal on Walkley Street run by Jack and Nancy Eyre , the Freedom on South Road run By big Allan ?? and the Rose House also on South Road run by Jack and Mavis ?.

More on these pubs later .

 

So I joined the Walkley club within about two days of moving to the area and what a club it was (is?)

As in other areas the club always had good turns at the weekend and I remember standing room only when Bobby Knutt or the The Turnstile were booked on a week end.

 

Knutty as he is affectionately known in Sheffield was a master at the one liner and any one who dared to leave their seat and walk across his vision while he was on stage was in for the put down such as " tha could have gone to bog five minutes since and saved us all the bleeedin smell"and so on.

 

The Turn stile where a group that had appeared on a T.V programme going the rounds at that time (maybe new faces ) and I believe they actually won it but could be wrong on that.

 

The lead singer of the Turnstile was a lass called Anita and up to this day she is still the finest live act singer I have ever seen .

 

Another act was Bitter Suite a group who did Queen numbers and dressed even more flamboyantly than the originals.

 

Jimmy James and the Vagabonds also appeared after being on Top of the Pops, a night I remember as we sat at the same table with the group who's lead guitarist Chris Garfield lived next door to us with his wife Jane .

 

The Walkley club at that time had a very motley crew as committee men with a lot of nudge nudge wink wink deals going on in around the club.

One prominent committee man who I had worked with at various times whispered in my ear one Friday and asked me if I wanted to win the bingo , I asked "how can I do that " and is reply was on the lines of "as soon as tha only needs two or three numbers shout house and I will check thi card and put in two or three numbers that have already gone "

Bingo thas won , I told him to pith off and from that day on never played another game of Bingo any where .

 

Apart from that the Walkley was a good club with a village type gathering and as far as I know is still going strong although many of the members from that time will now be playing bingo in another land.

[Padders]

walkley club 1963. the first establishment in sheffield to have a stripper perform..

of course i was there, packed out it was, sunday dinner... on she came and slowly began to strip i could"nt believe my eyes, remember this was 60odd years ago..when she had removed the last garment, she had to stand still till the curtains closed. best sunday dinner i ever had i can tell you.

[samssong]

walkley club 1963. the first establishment in sheffield to have a stripper perform..

of course i was there, packed out it was, sunday dinner... on she came and slowly began to strip i could"nt believe my eyes, remember this was 60odd years ago..when she had removed the last garment, she had to stand still till the curtains closed. best sunday dinner i ever had i can tell you.

 

Two years before I moved there Padders .

Some members I remember Jim and Keith Rose, Sam Ruddiforth , Tosh Wild, Jack Damms, Hathersage Tom. Mick Colley, Taggy, Barry and Carl Hutchinson, Gilbert Hartley , Tony Brookfield, Bernard Frith, Ken Sawyer, and a cast of thousands although I can't say who was on the front row:hihi:

[old tup]

I used to frequent the Walkley Club at the same time as Padders ,Sunday dinners the favourite of course!.Jack Danks I knew as well as Barry and Carl Hutchinson,Carl was a good friend,he worked with Allan "Robin" Crapper property dodging, at the time we met Sunday dinners in the Bath Hotel Burgoyne Road before nipping over to see the stripper!.Sadly both are no more Robin died suddenly in his sleep in Tenerife,Carl from cancer which he told none of us about so that was a shock!.Carl used to knock off Georgina from the Hurricanes,my present wife and I were good friends with them,some of their arguments were epic!.One bank holiday at Blackpool Georgina nearly got run down by a tram on the front dashing across the road to swipe Carl with her handbag in the middle of a bust up,never a dull moment with those two!.She gave up a good career move to be with him,she had some contract on the continent but broke it to be with him,they still split up later down the line,she had a terrific voice sad really!.

[Padders]

yasser arafat, adolph hitler. gaddafi, saddam hussein, mussolini, tony blair. and wait for it.......THE COMMITTEE MAN........

 

every members dream and ambition was to get elected on to the committee, this gave you untold power and privilege, you wore a little badge on your lapel, this informed any stranger visiting the club that you were a committee man, and not to be messed with.

 

should you have a confrontation with a committee man, you did so at your peril, if you consumed a bit to much firewater, and told a committee man to bugger of, you were immediately put on a charge and summoned to the next committee meeting..

 

when you attended the meeting you were ordered to explain your actions.. you would then be interrogated by different committee men. bit like the spanish inquisition...

 

you then had to do the customary grovelling and apologising, you were then dismissed to await your fate, which usually meant you being barred for 1 2 3 or 6 months, depending on how good your grovelling was.

if the crime was serious like talking during the tombola, you could get sine die, which meant you were barred indefinetly.

 

no you certainly did"nt cross a committee man in those days, not if you valued your club book.

[samssong]

I used to frequent the Walkley Club at the same time as Padders ,Sunday dinners the favourite of course!.Jack Danks I knew as well as Barry and Carl Hutchinson,Carl was a good friend,he worked with Allan "Robin" Crapper property dodging, at the time we met Sunday dinners in the Bath Hotel Burgoyne Road before nipping over to see the stripper!.Sadly both are no more Robin died suddenly in his sleep in Tenerife,Carl from cancer which he told none of us about so that was a shock!.Carl used to knock off Georgina from the Hurricanes,my present wife and I were good friends with them,some of their arguments were epic!.One bank holiday at Blackpool Georgina nearly got run down by a tram on the front dashing across the road to swipe Carl with her handbag in the middle of a bust up,never a dull moment with those two!.She gave up a good career move to be with him,she had some contract on the continent but broke it to be with him,they still split up later down the line,she had a terrific voice sad really!.

I know (knew) all that mob tup , as you say Georgina was a magnificent singer.

 

---------- Post added 18-12-2016 at 15:07 ----------

 

yasser arafat, adolph hitler. gaddafi, saddam hussein, mussolini, tony blair. and wait for it.......THE COMMITTEE MAN........

 

every members dream and ambition was to get elected on to the committee, this gave you untold power and privilege, you wore a little badge on your lapel, this informed any stranger visiting the club that you were a committee man, and not to be messed with.

 

should you have a confrontation with a committee man, you did so at your peril, if you consumed a bit to much firewater, and told a committee man to bugger of, you were immediately put on a charge and summoned to the next committee meeting..

 

when you attended the meeting you were ordered to explain your actions.. you would then be interrogated by different committee men. bit like the spanish inquisition...

 

you then had to do the customary grovelling and apologising, you were then dismissed to await your fate, which usually meant you being barred for 1 2 3 or 6 months, depending on how good your grovelling was.

if the crime was serious like talking during the tombola, you could get sine die, which meant you were barred indefinetly.

 

no you certainly did"nt cross a committee man in those days, not if you valued your club book.

The finest announcement I have ever heard from the gob of a committee man occurred in the Midhill club one Saturday night .

 

"If the person who has left **** on the gents toilet seat dunt go and clean it off now the bingo will not start".

Its still there:hihi:

Edited December 18, 2016 by samssong

[TORONTONY]

yasser arafat, adolph hitler. gaddafi, saddam hussein, mussolini, tony blair. and wait for it.......THE COMMITTEE MAN........

 

every members dream and ambition was to get elected on to the committee, this gave you untold power and privilege, you wore a little badge on your lapel, this informed any stranger visiting the club that you were a committee man, and not to be messed with.

 

should you have a confrontation with a committee man, you did so at your peril, if you consumed a bit to much firewater, and told a committee man to bugger of, you were immediately put on a charge and summoned to the next committee meeting..

 

when you attended the meeting you were ordered to explain your actions.. you would then be interrogated by different committee men. bit like the spanish inquisition...

 

you then had to do the customary grovelling and apologising, you were then dismissed to await your fate, which usually meant you being barred for 1 2 3 or 6 months, depending on how good your grovelling was.[/b]

if the crime was serious like talking during the tombola,

[

no you certainly didn't cross a committee man in those days, not if you valued your club book.

 

Lol at the tombola line:D