WM Clubs in Sunderland area, long since gone!


Our lass’ family have been regulars for years at South Hylton club. We tend to go in there a few weekends a month just for the fact it’s a cheap enough night out. Some of the turns can be hit and miss but it’s still a good laugh regardless.

Usual double bingo between the sets too. Sign of the times though the cover charge having to increase for premium acts for bands compared to a singer as the attendance figures just aren’t covering it which is a shame.

Hopefully it’ll remain there but it’s a tough ask to get a younger generation into these places today as for example, a group of young lasses would rather go to places like the Stack etc to get photos for instagram with their cocktails. Doesn’t have the same appeal being in a WMC with yer auld Da.
 
My Gran and Granda would be round that club on Poole Road/Fordfield Road all the time when I was a nipper. It might have been called Pennywell Club but I'm not sure.

Ford & Hylton Lane Club (which bizarrely was in Pennywell tbf). Pennywell WMC club was in Pickering Road up the top. Us Pennywell lads used to have the 'top club' (WMC) and the 'bottom club' (Comrades, which I was in for the first time in about 15 years on Sunday gone).
 
A mate of mine won the £25,000 number draw last year..that million pound they've got in the bank is something that's been mentioned for ages..it was only a few years ago that they posted a loss for the first time in the clubs history.

My local club made a loss a few years ago (only about £3k) but that was cos of a lot of one-off repairs and investment. Making a loss one year for stuff like that is normal and if you're a not-for-profit organisation beneficial. They still had over £150k in reserves.

Was it the year they converted the bookies into a games room?
 
Comrades is in South Hylton to add to the the bizarreness.....i think?

By about 20 yards, although the original Penny Well that the estate was named after was where Greenbank Drive is now.

There was a bloke sitting in the same seat in front of the bar that I first saw him sitting in in 1984. Every Sunday without fail. The only thing different was he had two new drinking companions cos the original two have passed away.
 
My local was The Deneside Catholic Club in Jarra, been gone over 10 years now but back in the late 80's & 90's it was absolutely rammed.
They used to queue to get in on a sunday night for their seats in the concert room, the bar was always heaving, lounge the same....unfortunately it was being run by corrupt kernts who made their living via the skim, never worked a day in their lives some of them had the same carpet in their living rooms as what was in the lounge, committee men going to every skunk home game via tickets from the brewery instead of raffling them for charity.
One fat tw*t in particular used to run the blind football card, if you were in the bar and asked who won, it was always someone in the lounge, if you were in the lounge and asked it was always someone in the bar.....and the portly fucker was carrying a wad that would've choked a donkey :eek::lol:
The closest big one now is probably The Shack in Boldon Colliery
 
Washington Welfare was part of my youth and early adult life, every pub or club I go in now I compare them to the Welfare, it was brilliant, full of characters, hard drinkers, hard men and some of the best pool and snooker players I have seen. If you were a Welfare lad you had mates for life. I actually cried when it was pulled down after the travesty it was allowed to become. ( last chance ranch )
Me Granda was Secretary at the Welfare back in the 70's. Loved going in there as a pre-teen lad with him. Being allowed to play pool, and being allowed to win because I was with him. He passed in 1985, at the end of the miners strike. He was the last man to leave the F-Pit as he was the Cage Driver in the wheel house, and when he passed away the "Billy Trotter Memorial" Pool tournament started. I was allowed to present it to the winner the first year it ran. Funnily enough, to a bloke I beat when I was 10.
 
Me Granda was Secretary at the Welfare back in the 70's. Loved going in there as a pre-teen lad with him. Being allowed to play pool, and being allowed to win because I was with him. He passed in 1985, at the end of the miners strike. He was the last man to leave the F-Pit as he was the Cage Driver in the wheel house, and when he passed away the "Billy Trotter Memorial" Pool tournament started. I was allowed to present it to the winner the first year it ran. Funnily enough, to a bloke I beat when I was 10.
Stumpys Cup ??
 
My parents and relatives went to Thorney Close for many years - my dad was proud that he was a 'jolly boy' 😂. When he died she started going to the Grindon club and Farringdon on a Sunday night for the dancing. Just before she died she went into Archer's Court care home and her room overlooked the defunct Farringdon club - it broke her heart to see it all shuttered up and falling to bits.
I've heard of the jolly girls but not the jolly boys. Do you know what the jolly name was about? Was it something to do with the jolly buses?
 
My local was The Deneside Catholic Club in Jarra, been gone over 10 years now but back in the late 80's & 90's it was absolutely rammed.
They used to queue to get in on a sunday night for their seats in the concert room, the bar was always heaving, lounge the same....unfortunately it was being run by corrupt kernts who made their living via the skim, never worked a day in their lives some of them had the same carpet in their living rooms as what was in the lounge, committee men going to every skunk home game via tickets from the brewery instead of raffling them for charity.
One fat tw*t in particular used to run the blind football card, if you were in the bar and asked who won, it was always someone in the lounge, if you were in the lounge and asked it was always someone in the bar.....and the portly fucker was carrying a wad that would've choked a donkey :eek::lol:
The closest big one now is probably The Shack in Boldon Colliery
On a rare day off many moons ago...went into local WMC in Dudleyshire... lunctime beer and sat with Committee men and couple of others
went to bar to get another one...asked if anyone wanted a beer.
they said .." hey son...you cant afford to drink with us...youre working"
 

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