Author: Roving Mick

Switch Nightclub A Big Turn On For Blackburn Nightlife

Posted by Roving Mick on April 1, 2018

Blackburn town centre has a new nightclub.  Switch is its name and it could be one of the final pieces in this jigsaw of improvements to our town centre’s pub and club scene.

I first went in an earlier incarnation of this club as a 16 year old. It was known as the Mecca and was the venue for my student freshman’s ball. Most 16 year olds looked older back in those 1970’s days.  But not me, I looked like a street urchin out of Oliver Twist.  Amazingly, I still managed to get served that night. Those three pints of bitter finished me off.  Fortunately my sobriety had recovered enough by the time I got home, enabling me to sneak off to bed without disturbing my parents.

At the time, Blackburn’s Mecca, or to call it by its proper name, the Golden Palms, was one of a number of town centre nightclubs we had available when I first called in.  This building was built in 1909 and started out as stables for the Old Bull pub.  Its use changed to a skating rink a couple of years later.  It then became the Olympia Theatre for ten years, before being converted to a cinema, though still keeping its Olympia name.  This closed down in 1957.  Mecca then bought it two years later to turn it into a dance hall and it became the Locarno Ballroom.

Many of us will have stories to tell about the Mecca under its various different guises.  But now we have a brand new nightclub known as Switch.  It has all of today’s latest technology on offer and should help fill a generation gap which has emerged in Blackburn town centre over these last few years.  Daytime drinking seems to have become the norm down town, but there looks to be a demand out there from younger people who want to have a good time at night.

Security is a big issue with nightclubs and Switch is determined it won’t become a 3D nightclub.  It has put measures in place to prevent Drugs, Drunkenness and Disorder taking place.  Over the years this place, like our town centre, has had its ups and downs, but always seems to come back again.  Hopefully this tenacity can bring it success and reflect the good work going on in Blackburn town centre and its continuing pub, club and nightlife rejuvenation.

Venky’s Drugs Could Bulk up Rovers’ Lightweight Defence

Posted by Roving Mick on March 5, 2018

Blackburn Rovers’ Indian owners are making news again for all the wrong reasons.  They have faced criticism for selling antibiotics which boost animal growth.  Now rumours are flying round about their alleged human use in trying to build up weight gain in the football club’s leaky defence.

Many Rovers fans believe their team’s back four and goalkeeper do seem rather lightweight.  They have conceded nearly a goal a game so far this season and adding a bit of bulk could be an answer to this problem.  Sadly for Rovers, Venky’s track record of mixing its chicken products with its footballers has definitely not paid off so far.  Their infamous advert showing players in the dressing room, battling for chicken drumsticks, was titled ‘Good For You’.  It received derision not only from rival fans, but from Rovers supporters too.

Unfortunately history would also judge this advert – and Venky’s inept ownership – as being anything but good for Blackburn Rovers.  We are over £100M in debt and languish in English football’s third tier.  The last thing we need is our players being accused of doping.  We already know who the dopes are at Rovers and they live in India.

Criticism of Venky’s and other pharmaceutical companies mainly relates to possible long-term damage from feeding chickens Colistin as a weight gainer.  It could make bacteria build up resistance to this antibiotic.  Therefore disease and superbugs could enter the food chain through chickens and their surroundings and become a potential threat to humans and other animals.

One of the Venky brothers may already have been voluntarily testing their weight gaining promoters over many years.  His physique would indicate great success at gaining bulk.  But when asked about any adverse effects to himself, or his food tasters, no comments were forthcoming from the company.

Although not illegal in India, many animal health and welfare organisations want this practice of adding antibiotics to chicken feed banned.  England’s Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies has called for a worldwide ban on Colistin and other antibiotics as growth promoters.

Perhaps the FA could consider not only banning doping amongst footballers, but also amongst club owners too.  Unfortunately for Blackburn Rovers fans, the FA seems to be as lightweight in its actions as our leaky defence.  Venky’s have become our club’s own resistant superbugs and they are proving extremely difficult to eradicate.

Blackburn Bus Station Needs To Get Its End Away

Posted by Roving Mick on February 1, 2018

Blackburn Bus Station has lived up to expectations since its opening in May 2016.  Compared to the cold and windy Boulevard, our new bus station is clean and modern with real time information and helpful staff on hand.

Unfortunately there is one thing they have done which hasn’t gone down well with everybody.  This is their erection of a Hollywood style Blackburn sign on Penny Street.  What has upset people is its letter ‘n’, at the end of ‘Blackburn’, being written in lower case.  Whereas the rest of our town’s name is in upper case letters.

For those with a keen eye, letters advertising the Mall’s ‘Next’ store can be spotted high above our bus station.  Like the bus station’s Blackburn sign, their letters are also all in white.  But they share only one letter in their respective names.  This is the letter ‘n’, which both of them have in its lower case – albeit in different fonts.

Could this be a coincidence, or did their letters come in one job lot?  Or could it be their suppliers had run out of the letter ‘n’ in this sign’s font and were sent two capital ‘U’s instead?  A bit of improvisation may have been put into action here and one of these ‘U’s may have been turned upside down and used to finish off the Blackburn name.

It’s quite appropriate that our new bus station sign is just across the road from Thwaites’ closed Fleece pub.  This pub is just below another well-known sign, also belonging to Blackburn’s local brewery.  Its sign has been known to raise a few eyebrows and even turned faces red on one particular occasion.  If this pub was open its landlord would probably say to the red-faced sign designer: “We don’t serve your type in here.”

But perhaps our mysterious lower case letter ‘n’ is really a master stroke of genius from the sign designer after all.  Following so many lengthy delays in building our new bus station and subsequent transport cutbacks, what better a subject for discussion than this alternative version of the Blackburn End?

It deflects attention away from problems affecting our bus station and transport problems in general.  This gives us something unusual to moan about.  We should class ourselves lucky they didn’t send us a small ‘r’ to go with their ‘n’.  Shoved together, this sign would have attracted even more hilarity to our new bus station.

Blackburn’s Lemon Tree Pub Adds Zest To Town Centre

Posted by Roving Mick on January 1, 2018

Blackburn’s former Jubilee pub has now re-opened as the Lemon Tree.

On April Fool’s Day last year, I asked the question:  What next for Blackburn’s Jubilee Pub?  This followed its recent closure at the time.  Sadly for this pub, not only had it been dying a slow death commercially, structural damage was also blighting the building.  So things looked bleak and there seemed little possibility of it ever opening as a pub again in the present difficult economic climate.

But this is Blackburn and things are happening.  They are certainly happening on Blakey Moor and an opportunity arose to do something with the Jubilee.  This is where James and Katy Quayle stepped in.  With their other pub, the Drummer’s Arms, they have turned a derelict jeweller’s into Blackburn town centre’s jewel in the crown.  What was stopping them doing something similar with the Jubilee?

A decision was taken to rename the pub.  This was down to its intention to sell food and attract students from nearby Blackburn College and its University Centre.  Their next job was to sort out building problems and refit and decorate the pub throughout.  This included providing catering facilities and turning the Lemon Tree into one of only a handful of Blackburn’s town centre pubs to have food available.

The Lemon Tree opened its doors in December and looks very nice and clean and bright.  My only worry was being shocked by these old school desks which act as tables.  They brought back nightmare memories of my own school days, back in the 1970’s.  I sat at one which looked like my old school desk, but fortunately it was empty when opened.  There was no sign of my catapult or pea-shooter inside.  Neither was there any sign of the material we used to read under our bedsheets with a torch while listening to the wandering wavelength of Radio Luxembourg.

Another worry which also turned out to be a red herring was the price of real ale in the pub.  Rumours about its cask beer being too expensively priced have proved to be totally unfounded.  It costs the same for real ale in the Lemon Tree as it does in the Drummer’s Arms.

And so another pub re-opens in Blackburn town centre, continuing the good work being done by a lot of people and organisations.  This pub might be aimed at students, but it’s looking like it’s going to be a class act for the rest of us to follow.

Blackburn’s Nightlife On The Up

Posted by Roving Mick on December 6, 2017

Blackburn town centre’s nightlife is starting to go places.  Hopefully it will bring people here from other places.  But this hasn’t been an overnight improvement.  Various factors have led to this resurgence in its fortunes.

A low water mark had been reached just over a year ago and there was talk at the time of even more pub closures.  Fortunately we were saved from boring nights in front of the telly or expensive trips out of town by things starting to happen in our own town centre.

The turning point seemed to be when two major events happened in 2016.  These proved to be a catalyst for starting the ball rolling in this resurgence of Blackburn’s town centre pub scene.  Yet both were so very different in how things panned out.

Thwaites’ decision to close their Sir Charles Napier pub angered many regulars of Blackburn’s only rock pub.  They were determined this pub wasn’t going to die and a spirited campaign was organised.  This gained support from Judas Priest lead singer, Rob Halford, and rock concerts with groups giving their services for free.  There were also those tee shirts and the Napier being awarded an asset of community value.

A year-long struggle eventually led to a famous victory for this gallant band of Napier regulars.  And it also put across the message that things can be done if enough people are prepared to try.  Almost a prophetic overture to what was going to happen in the rest of our town centre.

Around the same time as the Napier came back from the dead, a brand new pub was born.  The Drummer’s Arms was a result of James and Katy Quayle noticing a demand for real ale in Blackburn while working during events in the museum and at the Bureau of Blackburn.  The Drummer’s Arms opened and was joined by its nextdoor neighbour, Tiki Monkey, which is bringing a taste of Hawaii to our town centre.

Another major player in this town centre revival came back from temporary closure.  The Adelphi reopened after various issues were resolved by its management.  It has gone on to re-establish itself as one of the town centre’s well known hostelries.  Things have been helped in its location by all these new developments on the former Boulevard site and an emergence of a new Cathedral Quarter.  This has attracted new high quality restaurants to the area, something which Blackburn needed badly.

Since these exciting new developments, Blackburn’s town centre boozer bandwagon has kept on rolling.  New pubs have opened, including the Bees Knees and Shh! Bar.  There is also another reopening in the pipeline with Blakey Moor’s Jubilee becoming the Lemon Tree.  Plus, The Squire, which was formerly Molloy’s, has been secured.  If this had closed down, it would have been a crucial loss to Blackburn town centre’s pub scene.

What has also been crucial in helping bring about this revival of Blackburn’s town centre pub scene and nightlife are those people who decided to do something about changing things for the better.  These have included Richey Pull and his ‘Closed Pubs of Blackburn’ Facebook page.  Alex Martindale and his tenacity in the Save the Napier campaign.  The Quayle family for opening the Drummer’s Arms and soon to be Lemon Tree.  And of course, Blackburn Nightlife Project for never giving up on our town centre and helping to promote all the new developments.

Things have not been entirely plain sailing.  We have still had some pub closures, just like everywhere else across the country.  But it’s been a case of two steps forward and one step back in Blackburn.  In these difficult economic times, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Blackburn’s Bees Knees Opens Its Account

Posted by Roving Mick on December 1, 2017

Blackburn town centre’s latest addition to its pub scene, the Bees Knees, opened up in the old TSB Bank, in November.

The building, on Lord Street West, first opened as a bank in 1863, costing £1834.15s.  There was a cotton famine going on at the time, due to it being during the height of the American Civil War.  This meant many Blackburn people were feeling the effects of unemployment and poverty.  So no grand opening of this new building took place at the time.

Over 150 years later it wasn’t a grand opening for the Bees Knees either.  This was down to decorations running late and paintwork still being wet.  So a decision was correctly taken by management of the pub to postpone its opening Friday night until next day.  I managed to get in the pub a day later, early on Sunday dinnertime.  As the pub’s name suggests, it was a hive of activity, with lots of punters calling in to check the new pub out.

My only problem was wearing a pair of suede boots with crepe soles.  This led to my feet sticking to their polished floor while walking to the bar.  Other people made similar squelching sounds, so a mop and bucket was found and this sorted things out.

No doubt, like me, those punters would have liked what they saw.  The pub is big and roomy, with lots of seats and tables.  It reminded me a bit of Blackburn’s former Blob Shop on Church Street.  For the real ale fans there were three cask beers on sale.  Much to my surprise was their reasonableness of price, with real ale around £2 a pint.  Plus, they gave me a reward card which would bring another pint my way once it was filled.

This pub looks like it is aimed at all ages.  Their WIFI works very well and so do the vast array of TV screens throughout the pub.  There is also a varied collection of lighting and sound equipment which gives the place a nightclub effect.  This should bring plenty of young people in.  Whereas the decent beer prices should attract a good afternoon and early evening trade from the middle aged and older clientele.

Hopefully the Bees Knees will help boost this growing revival of Blackburn’s town centre pub scene.  Apart from the opening night, things are looking good in here and going to plan.

Rovers’ Funeral Ash Thwarts Venky’s Earthworms

Posted by Roving Mick on November 1, 2017

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm:  Shakespeare – Hamlet

Many Blackburn Rovers fans have commented on how bad the Ewood Park playing surface has become over the last few seasons.

The worms that turned

The Worms That Turned

Everything seemed to be fine with Ewood’s football pitch until Indian owners, the Venky’s, took control of our club in 2010.  Unfortunately this opened up a whole new can of worms and is exactly what the problem was related to.  One of their business ideas was to supply Britain’s anglers with a super earthworm imported from India.  These creatures are said to be not only tasty to course fish, but are energetic in their reproductive activity and burrowing prowess.  Their latter aspect seemed ideal for killing two birds with one stone and was seen as an answer to drainage problems affecting Blackburn Rovers’ football pitch.  So thousands of these wriggly creatures were given a new home under Ewood’s hallowed turf.

Unfortunately for the Venky’s, nobody told them about one of Ewood Park’s more unusual customs – where deceased fans asked for their ashes to be sprinkled upon the pitch.  Apparently funeral ash not only contains residue of human remains, but also wood from the dearly departed’s coffin.  This has caused havoc to those earthworms living under the pitch due to raising alkaline levels in the soil and thereby creating a caustic environment for our little tenants.  So it seems Venky’s have made yet another grave mistake.

While wood ash can indeed be used as a soil additive and a compost ingredient – both very much in moderation – it is actually a pretty caustic alkaline (i.e. high pH) material, containing potassium hydroxide (KOH) – sometimes referred to as ‘lye’ (although this term generally refers to sodium hydroxide).  KOH is a chemical that will essentially dissolve living tissue.  Obviously, wood ash isn’t pure potassium hydroxide – but still, you certainly don’t want your worms exposed to this chemical at all.  Many of them will have tried to burrow their way to the River Darwen to escape this caustic soil.

Blackburn Rovers stopped funeral ash being sprinkled on their football pitch some years ago, but any fan wishing to have their ashes interred at our club can contact the chaplain and arrange for them to be sprinkled upon Rovers’ remembrance garden.  But too much damage has already been done to Venky’s angling scheme and their earthworms.  It rendered them unable to provide their original function.  So it seems another of their business plans has gone up in smoke.  Rovers fans always knew Venky’s would lose the plot.  Let’s hope this is the final nail in their coffin and one day their involvement in our club will also die a death.

Rock Against Venky’s At Blackburn’s Napier Pub

Posted by Roving Mick on October 1, 2017

What could be better on a September Saturday night than going to watch a rock concert and drinking real ale?  Even better, it was free entry and in Blackburn’s Charles Napier pub.  But most of all, it was cocking a snook at those hated Venky’s.

Photo taken by Roving Mick

Leonard Venkhater

I had a walk down nice and early around 6.00pm.  The usual Saturday afternoon punters were still in, but one or two Rovers fans were starting to appear on the scene.  To my surprise, my mate Parky turned up with Tonia, his girlfriend.  And my other half, Sylvia, turned up later in the evening.

We went upstairs to the Napier’s concert room and watched the first group kick off this evening’s entertainment.  They were a young group called Static and they were very good.  Unfortunately for me, the Napier’s upstairs bar didn’t have real ale piped up.  So it meant me having to go back downstairs each time I fancied a Trooper or their Cumbrian Ale on sale this evening.

A poet from Chorley followed the first rock group.  Unfortunately tonight’s organisers thought it was me who was their next act and asked me when I was ready for getting up on stage.  I showed them this poor bard, who was quietly waiting, and he got on with his performance.  A punk group from Blackpool – called Litterbug – was next.  They knew all about what Rovers fans were going through and wore Anti-Oyston teeshirts highlighting their own struggle against bad owners.

And then we had Leonard Venkhater.  He put in one of his legendary performances.  During an intermission, I had the pleasure of sitting down and having a pint and a good chat with Leonard.  I also bumped into MG Pensioner.  Both were unstinting in their passion to continue our fight to rid Rovers of this Venky’s scourge.

Sadly I didn’t get to see all the acts at tonight’s concert due to time pressing on.  But those I did see were very good.  Those who criticised this initiative would have been better off leaving their keyboards alone for the night and joining Rovers fans who want to do something and not just moan about it.  Like me, the organizers were very pleased with how things went.  Another event is certainly on the cards in this venue.  It was also nice to see boycotting Rovers fans mingling with those still going – all united together in their hatred of the Venky’s.

There are also similarities between happenings in this venue and our own battle.  Appropriately, the Napier is celebrating winning its own battle exactly a year ago.  Its regulars put up a great fight and managed to get their pub re-opened and back from the dead.  If this Blackburn institution can do it – so can we!

Rovers Fanzine 4000 Holes Returns After Four Years

Posted by Roving Mick on September 1, 2017

Blackburn Rovers fanzine, 4000 Holes, is back.  This follows a four year dormant period.

The fanzine started in 1989 when Rovers fans, mainly at Brockhall and Calderstones mental hospitals, set up the publication.  In its early beginnings Rovers were struggling financially and FTH even coughed up its own money and sponsored at least one match.  But it wasn’t long before things changed radically at Rovers when a certain Jack Walker decided to get involved.

Most football fanzines were a thorn in the side to many clubs, but not 4000 Holes!  Instead of slagging off the club’s directors and campaigning for change, our fanzine became a purveyor of humour and positivity.  After all, what did we have to complain about during those heady days?  This was like a dream come true for most of us.

When this fanzine started, they must have had a lot of material sent to them.  When I bought my first issue, its seller asked me to write articles and send copy to them.  He asked everybody else who brought a copy from him that day to follow suit.  By the time I wrote my first article for them, around a year later, FTH had already reached issue number 13.  In my case, they received a couple of submissions and published both of them in this issue – unlucky for some!

For nearly 25 years the fanzine came out regularly, though not on a similar kind of scale as when it first started.  As is usually the case, publication and writing of FTH eventually became the domain of a few writers and backroom staff.  Fortunately it was in Brendan Searson’s safe pair of hands.  His dogged determination made sure our fanzine came out on a regular basis each season.  For many years Brendan could be seen with his boys standing on the River Darwen bridge, next to the Aqueduct pub, selling fanzine issues whenever it came out.

Brendan eventually retired and passed his baton on to journalist Danny Clough and the fanzine carried on.  Unfortunately technical and other problems began to occur and a four year period of dormancy followed.

Now 4000 Holes fanzine has returned.  Freelance journalist, Scott Sumner, is at its helm.  During these turbulent times at Blackburn Rovers, it is nice to see a part of our culture, like the cover of this latest issue, come back from the dead.  Hopefully we might be able to say something similar about our football club one day.

Blackburn’s Molloy’s – Open For Business As Usual

Posted by Roving Mick on August 1, 2017

Blackburn’s Molloy’s pub has been put up for sale.  But despite not meeting its reserve price at auction in July, it’s still business as usual for the popular hostelry on King William Street.

 

Molloy’s has had a positive impact on Blackburn’s pub scene, despite it being one of our town centre’s ‘newer’ pubs.  It was well-known book shop, Seed & Gabbutt’s, for many years, until bought by Irish themed pubs group, O’Neill’s.  Duplicates of O’Neill’s familiar blue and yellow liveried pubs suddenly started springing up across Britain in the 1980’s and Blackburn was included.

Sadly for local CAMRA members, O’Neill’s was a real ale desert.  This reflected the Emerald Isle at the time, where cask beer was also very difficult to find.  But like Ireland and its own microbrewery revolution, that all changed when it became Molloy’s.  Despite its Irish name, this theme bar culture was gradually squeezed out and it became a proper pub.  No more trying to figure out what Fir and Mna meant on the toilet doors.

Molly’s soon became a mainstay of our town centre real ale scene and carried on flying the flag while other pubs either shut down or stopped selling cask beer.  This pub is now established as one of the best in Blackburn.  It is one of three, including the Napier and Postal Order, which serves food, along with real ale in the town centre, and has a good mix of young and old punters in during the day and at night.

‘Molly’s’ owner, Stonegate Pub Company, part of the Cayman Islands incorporated TDR Capital group, are also selling off many of their other interests.  They are Britain’s fourth largest managed pub chain and currently own nearly 700 outlets, including Yates, Walkabout and the Slug and Lettuce restaurants.  It would appear the latter may be where Stonegate may have their main focus, leading to them possibly wishing to offload some of their pubs to release funds for further investment in their prime interests.

Unfortunately Stonegate’s pub downsizing plans has had a negative effect on business, certainly at local level.  Many punters think Molly’s has either shut down already, or will be doing so in the very near future.  This is certainly not the case and the best way of ensuring the future of this popular friendly pub is to carry on supporting it and keep the momentum going in the rebirth of Blackburn’s pub scene.