WM Clubs in Sunderland area, long since gone!


Not saying it didn't happen. But in our club it still is an instant barring offence if you're caught playing the two games mentioned. Up to the lads playing if they want to take that risk.

The reason is as stated - you need a proper full gaming/gambling license to allow 'games of chance' to be played - like a casino. Again, up to the club itself if they want to turn a blind eye but they can be fined heavily and/or shut down (the harshest penalty) if they are found to be letting it happen without censure.

Dominoes and other card games, such as Nap, are allowed as they have an element of skill involved and are not classed as 'games of chance'.

Tell me you are on the committee without telling me you are on the committee 🤔🫡
 
Never been a big fan of wmcs, always smokey stinking places and then probably smelt worse when the ban came in. Used to work in loads all over the north east and there were lots of Brian potter type stewards 🤣

We've obviously lost a load, downhill, castletown,farringdon and now red House has fairly recently gone. Wonder if Newtown Aycliffe is still there, that was a huge club.
A lad I knows dad was the chairman or something. He was contacted by a National newspaper asking why women weren’t allowed in the bar. “ we allowed a woman to govern the country, look how that went, so we don’t want one spoiling the club”
 
Tell me you are on the committee without telling me you are on the committee 🤔🫡
Not a chance!

I don't get in often enough for that to happen - not that I'd want to anyway. I saw how it affected my parents' marriage when my Dad was on the committee many, many years ago. He also had a short-lived stint as a Steward in our local RBL club which he reckoned was the worst year of his life as an employee.

I just know the rules around things like from being a member for so long. I've also seen people get barred for playing the card games I mentioned
 
Two within spitting distance of my flat and I’m a member. Shit beers in them but good crack. I’m in weekly whether it’s watching sport or playing darts. I’d be gutted if they went.
 
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?
I don't know the origin of the term Jolly Boy, other than they used to support functions - Xmas parties, trips for kids to Flamingo Park and charity donations. They used to have meetings of virtually all the club members. I'd heard of Jolly Girls but thought it was an honorary title for wives of Jolly Boys. There was an episode of Only Fools and Horses where Del organised Jolly Boys outing to Margate.
 
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).
Just missed you, I was in Saturday night. 👍
 
Barbary coast pre match take some beating big babs rotten

Monday nee body at work how'ld on Downhill

I used to wind me Dad up about that when the yards closed..'Dar you know on a Monday when loads of the lads have half days to go on the drink..do you know what the Japanese and Korean Shipyards are doing..building ships'..only time i ever seen him bite like fk.
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?

The crack at the time was it was because all the suddickers had come down and got on the committee..allegedly..🤷‍♂️
 
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I don't know the origin of the term Jolly Boy, other than they used to support functions - Xmas parties, trips for kids to Flamingo Park and charity donations. They used to have meetings of virtually all the club members. I'd heard of Jolly Girls but thought it was an honorary title for wives of Jolly Boys. There was an episode of Only Fools and Horses where Del organised Jolly Boys outing to Margate.
I always thought it was just a Sunderland thing. Maybe something to do with the Jolly buses. Looks like I got that wrong if it got mentioned on only fools and horses. I wonder if they still exist today?
 
Just missed you, I was in Saturday night. 👍

I went in the Potters for a couple too. When I was a lad there was six pubs in Pennywell and South Hylton (and another three just outside the border) and at least five clubs. There's only one pub and two clubs now I think (I'm assuming the RBL has closed down the bank).
 
I went in the Potters for a couple too. When I was a lad there was six pubs in Pennywell and South Hylton (and another three just outside the border) and at least five clubs. There's only one pub and two clubs now I think (I'm assuming the RBL has closed down the bank).
South Hylton RBL has been closed for years - there're houses on the site now.
 
My local club (pre lockdown) were paying the resident band (key board, bass and drummer) £18k a year. Two nights, Saturday and Sunday. The Sunday it would be 20/30 punters at most.
Hell on one Saturday night when one of the local old dears departed after the bingo and full of cider and black crashed into the resident bands cars in the car park. It was noted they were also the three finest cars in the car park.
 
Clubland “Exotic Dancers” have been mentioned.

I went to a wMC in Benton once to see an up and coming band. I don’t recall who now. Most of the people in the room were young and had come for the band. Don’t ask me how we gained entry without being a ‘afillitted’ cos I don’t remember.

I was well aware of concert rooms and WMCs and Fed Special and the Committee etc etc. and had been in loads of clubs previous with bands etc. But on this occasion there was an exotic dancer in the interval. And it was the wrong crowd for it.

It was a lass who had a pretty terrible act with fire stick things. That’s apart from the taking the clothes off thing. It was embarrassing. Mostly everybody was studiously ignoring her but there was some cat calling. Then a lad from our table strode up to the stage and asked her for a light from her fire breathing stick thing. Which she gave him.

He got a better reception than her act.

I’ve seen probably two or three ‘strippers’ or exotic dancers in my life. One in that club in Longbenton, one at a club called the Monkey Club in Annfield Plain and one at Rio’s in Whitley Bay in the mid 80s. On all occasions nearly everybody there was there for something else, on all occasions it was cringy and in all occasions there wasn’t anything the slightest bit exotic or remotely sexy about it at all. It was all a bit sad really.
 
Of course, they do, that's the nature of life, unfortunately, when you press that button, you end up with a pile of shite, by the way, I didn't really watch TV back then, I was busy enjoying my time socializing with real people, crazy concept I know, but it was fun, so much better than Love Island, etc, keep pressing the button Min, one day you might find some satisfaction.

I have a spooky feeling it might have been in "Commercial road" mate, just a wild stab in the dark mind.

It's buttons that have created the best music of all time and I've gained massive satisfaction from that mate cheers! House wasn't made by denim-clad stinkholes with old fashioned guitars was it?
 
Committee members ruined a lot of the WM clubs, not moving with the times and only thinking about lining their pockets.

Money and power breeds corruption.
 

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