Category: Preston

Preston Venues 61 to 62

I am returning to the area of my hometown and birthplace of Preston this week by delving into the nearby town of Chorley which is a short ten-minute train ride away. It is the home of the Chorley cake, certainly not to be confused with Eccles cakes! Previous famous residents include Pauline Clare, UK’s first woman chief constable, comedian Phil Cool, speaker of the house Lindsay Hoyle, League of Gentleman’s Steve Pemberton and musicians John Foxx and Starsailor.

My pal Jez Catlow has been a member of various bands over the years with one of the latter ones being Deadwood Dog. The lead singer Mick Pike recently took over a bar in Chorley town centre and obviously was always going to stage music there, including spots for his own bands!  

Chorley Foxtails. Image Credit tripadvisor.co.uk

So, situated on a street called Pall Mall, you will find Chorley Foxtails Bar and Music Club, which is a fine cosy friendly establishment, and is a family run bar. They are open between 3 and 10 from Thursday to Sunday, but those hours can be extended as and when desired.

They have Thursday night community events incorporating music quizzes and craft & draught and games evenings. They stage regular gigs, normally on either a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon, mostly free but with the odd pay event. Stourbridge punk balladeer Jess Silk is playing there this very evening at a sold out gig.       

Gill, Uncle George and I decided to make a sabbatical over to this new bar to see Deadwood Dog in action on the last day of February this year. As Preston North End had a big FA Cup tie at high noon the next day, we sought alternative approaches as it made no sense to return home in the interim. We landed on the option of finding some cheap digs nearby and Chorley North Premier Inn met that brief perfectly.

So, on the Friday we navigated the M60 rush hour traffic to land at the hotel which had the very busy Malthouse Farm pub located right next door. We then purloined an uber into the town centre and purchased some tea at Calico Lounge near the train station.

Chorley North Premier Inn. Image Credit lancashire-hotels.com

We met George off the train and had a couple of refreshing sherbets before gravitating over to Foxtails. We sampled a couple of local ales and chewed the fat with Jez and Hughie who was also in attendance. The opening act was a decent blues covers band called Mojo Rising followed by an enjoyable set from Deadwood.  

After the gig we gravitated to the award-winning Chorley Shepherds Hall Ale House & Victoria Rooms. Itwas the first micro pub to open in Chorley in August 2014 and became a trend setter that many others have followed. The driving force behind it were three brothers named Stuart, Graham and Thomas Hardyman (no it is not the start of a joke or a Harry Potter script line!). 

Shepherds Hall Ale House. Image Credit tripadvisor.in

The name derived from the ancient order of Shepherd’s friendly society that used to be based in the building in the 19th century. It is located on Chapel Street near to the bus station and took over the former S&F Newsagents and is open seven days a week. It was refurbished in December 2020 and in the tail end of 2021 it expanded by taking over the adjacent larger shop unit next door.

It is an inviting establishment with a plethora of ales on tap and one we regularly visit when carousing in the town. It has a traditional Tap room, and the adjoining newer Victoria room is a larger space with extra seating dotted about. They now have sporadic music acts and are part of the Chorley Live roster. On the night of our visit a very noisy punk covers band were playing.

After encouraging George to head off and catch the midnight train, we encountered a delay before managing to bag a cab back to the hotel. We were both rather jaded in the morning but were revived by the chirpy staff and a belly busting breakfast and lashings of hot tea.  

I then went to pick up my father-in-law and then onto the match where we had a famous 3-0 victory over local rivals Burnley to reach the quarterfinals of the FA Cup for the first time in 59 years, and thus the first time in my lifetime.

Michael Palin playing Golden Gordon in Ripping Yarns. Image Credit BBC.

On arriving back, the result and achievement felt momentous enough to consider an impersonation of Michael Palin in the Ripping Yarns episode ‘Golden Gordon’ where he reappears after the football and when asked the score, he shouts out ‘eight -one, eight bloody one’ before trashing the crockery in celebration!

Manchester Venues 145 to 146

The National Football Museum was conceived in the 1990’s and subsequently opened its doors in 2001. Its location was Preston North End’s Deepdale stadium and was home to many artefacts which evolved into the Football Heritage collection. I could not think of a more justifiable host as in my view Preston is the home of football as they were one of the twelve founding members of the league in 1888. In that initial season they won the FA Cup and the league without losing a game and as a result were then forever tagged as the ‘Invincibles’.   

The original ‘Invincibles’. Image Credit These Football Times.

In the women’s game the first and most famous team was the Dick Kerr Ladies who were a factory team in Preston formed in 1917. In 1920 they defeated an illustrious French team 2-0 in front of a 25,000 crowd, a historic first international women’s football game. On Boxing Day 1920 they played a charity match against St Helens Ladies who they beat 4-0 at Goodison Park with 53,000 spectators packed in, a world record for a women’s club match that lasted for a further 98 years.

The following year the FA disgracefully banned women from using fields and stadiums controlled by FA-affiliated clubs and the ban stayed in place for an astounding 50 years until 1971. Dick Kerr Ladies stayed in existence until 1965, and they had a remarkable record of winning 682 of the 755 games they played. If I was a filmmaker that sounds like a movie script I would be interested in!

Despite being popular the museum closed in Preston in 2010 and relocated to the Urbis building in Manchester. It was caused by a combination of local council ineptitude but also ‘big city’ pressure that caused the move, and for that second reason alone I begin to chunner when I walk past the museum and have never attended there since it was moved from its spiritual home!

As I unpack my imaginary soapbox and place it back in the metaphorical cupboard, I shall move away from the Urbis building to the Cathedral Gardens that lie adjacent to it. This area was a car park back in the day and the green open space now in place was only developed after the damage caused by the IRA bomb in 1996. It is situated nearby to the flagship Mark and Spencer’s store which at the stage of its opening was the largest in the world. 

Manchester Cathedral Gardens. Image Credit Pinterest.

During the spring and summer months they have sporadic food and music events and currently have a Christmas ice skating rink in place there. One such gathering took place within the auspices of the Manchester International Festival in July 2021 as we were just beginning to drag ourselves out of the Covid pandemic period. As a result of the increased checks still in place at that stage, we were in a long queue on entry and then were escorted to a table. The stewards perhaps unwittingly placed us with a fine viewpoint of Manchester Cathedral Gardens Stage 1, but there were no complaints from myself as my 16-month drought of witnessing a live band was about to reach a denouement.    

The weather thankfully was set fair and behaving itself. There was the obligatory app available to download and link up with the surrounding vendors, thus cold beers and pizzas were summarily ordered. The first band we saw were the Goa Express from Burnley who contain in their ranks the Clarke brothers. Last year they released their self-titled debut album, and I have heard them many times played on 6 music. They provided a pleasing slab of fuzzy garage rock, reminiscent somewhat of Nine Black Alps.  

The Goa Express. Image Credit brightonandhovenews.org

At that point we spotted Tris and her pals (unfortunately not a band!) who were ensconced on a nearby table and via text messaging we surreptitiously manipulated a ‘chance’ meeting to have a quick parlay and a catch up. The other act to play was a local DJ crossover act called Chips with Everything (not half rice, half chips!) who have been part of the leftfield circuit for over two decades.

If we then swivelled and faced in the opposite direction, we had a slightly more obstructed view of Manchester Cathedral Gardens Stage 2 where we saw Porij (a deliberate mispronunciation of Porridge) play. They are a four-piece art-pop Manchester act who met initially at the Royal Northern College of Music a couple of years earlier. They have since garnered Coldplay support slots and then released their debut album ‘Teething’ in April 2024.