Tag: The Blossoms

Stockport Venues 3 to 4

Continuing my journey through the Stockport suburbs brings you to the area of Heaton Moor and the thriving street of Shaw Road with its plethora of restaurants and bars. At the Heaton Moor Road end, you find Leoni’s Italian restaurant who also owned a short-lived pizzeria on the other side of the street. In the building where the restaurant now resides there used to be a Kro Bar branch, their first outside the city centre which ran from 2008 to 2016 before a short stint then as cocktail bar Tusk.

A smidge further down you reach a Stockport institution Kushoom Koly, a curry house that first opened in 1971, known locally as the ‘Kush’. We attended there in late 2018 and the owner Faruk Uddin made a beeline for us as ‘newbies’ to the establishment and was a thoroughly lovely chap and we had a very fine meal. I surmise we would have returned many more times, but unimaginable tragedy struck when the owner’s son Jordan was killed in a road traffic accident and the proprietor felt he could not carry on and the restaurant closed for good in 2019.

  

The Kush. Image Credit facebook.com

On the other side of the street there are two separate ale bars called Pale and Bottle respectively. Beyond those you find Pokusevski’s Mediterranean restaurant which has expanded from its original tiny café when it first opened in 2004. It is an inviting place with dangerously delicious cakes and their own home made ginger tea. It was one of the first places to open locally during the pandemic and I recall our palpable excitement in those surreal times for something as abundantly simple as a takeaway coffee!

Next to there is Hula, a tiki late night dive bar which I have never frequented, however within this location the music venue called the Blue Cat used to reside.  A local chap called Danny Donnelly, a former electrician, spotted a large gap in the Stockport live music scene and bravely opened up the venue in 1996. The premise was to provide a platform for upcoming bands as an antidote to the gruel diet of tribute acts at other local sites and they actually instilled this ethos by having a no covers policy in place. With the opening of the venue, he actually kickstarted the subsequent regeneration of Shaw Road.

The Blue Cat. Image Credit Manchester Evening News.com

Luminaries such as The Blossoms, Johnny Marr, Nick Harper, Ian McNabb, Kiki Dee and 1975 have played there and local acts Haven (from Heaton Moor) and Isobel Heyworth were supplied opportunities to make a name for themselves. Comedy nights were also staged, and John Bishop, Alan Carr, Sarah Millican and Jack Whitehall have graced the stage. He also set up his own record label named Out of the Blue.

As a result of Stockport’s inflexible licensing laws with their 11.30 curfew, the venue was sadly forced to close for good in 2015 after a 19-year residency. The final band to play there was the band Man Made featuring Johnny Marr’s son Nile. I never had the chance to frequent as this was in the pre-Manchester Jimmy period.  

A couple of doors away is Stockport Cassidy’s Bar which was opened by a chap called Martin Cassidy in 2004. It has an odd lay out with a split level from the entrance up to the main bar. There is sport constantly booming on the many screens and they also have music on at the weekend. There have also been karaoke performances with one previous event led by Blossoms frontman Tom Ogden. On the night of our visit in 2019 a local singer called Sally Walters was playing.

Cassidy’s Bar. Image Credit The UK

On a monthly basis the Stockport Heaton Moor Market takes over Shaw Road with its numerous market stalls. On one occasion at the tail end of 2021 there was a set from the Heatons & Reddish Ukelele band who practice every Friday at the local United Reform Church.  

Stockport Gigs

When we moved into our current pad in 2018, we quickly realised we were located 100 yards over the Manchester border into Stockport. This sparked thoughts of my previous interactions with Stockport.  

My first two visits were to the football stadium at Edgeley Park to watch Preston away. In our promotion season in 1986/87 we had a Monday night match, but when Uncle George arrived to pick me up and drive to the game, his car would not start up again. I didn’t drive or own a vehicle at that stage, so the only other option was to borrow my parent’s car as they were away on holiday and George had insurance to drive any motor.

Those initial shenanigans resulted in us arriving very late and we could only access the home end before being escorted around the pitch to the PNE enclosure, but in those basic stadium days we were then perched on the side of a dusty mound with hugely limited views, though thankfully we won the game 3-1. I recall us heading for a beer in the Greenall Whitley land of Warrington on the way home.  

We returned about five years later for a Friday night match and were well beaten with the 6ft 7-inch striker Kevin Francis tormenting us, as a postscript I have just read that he has had an interesting post career change and now works for the Canadian police force. Final word on the football front is that I am delighted to see Stockport flying high at the moment as they have been through a very lean period for the last couple of decades.     

I used to occasionally travel over to my brothers in Nottingham via Stockport on the M63 (as it was then). My only other recollection was in the early 1990’s when Gill was based in Eccles we travelled over to the Garrick Theatre, which remains to this day, to see the Rochdale Cowboy Mike Harding. He was excellent entertainment with I seem to recall a running gag throughout the evening involving cheese and crackers.

Stockport Garrick Theatre. Image Credit theatresonline.com

Stockport lies 7 miles southeast of Manchester and dates back to 1170 and the River Tame and River Goyt meet here to form the River Mersey and we can walk into the centre from our current home in about 45 minutes down the river. It has a considerable industrial heritage with industries covering products such as hemp, rope, cotton, silk and hats, the latter producing more than 6 million hats at its peak in the late 19th century.

Dominating the skyline over the M60 is the terrific Stockport viaduct with its 27 brick arches and uniquely Stockport train station is one of a very rare number in Britain to have a Platform 0. The reason for the quirky numbering is that there was only room for a new Platform on the Platform 1 side of the station. The Plaza is a Grade II listed cinema and variety theatre and is the last of its kind operating in original format. They have odd gigs there and last year Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott undertook a post Covid concert specifically for NHS staff.

Stockport Viaduct. Image Credit flickr.com

Stockport has suffered as a poor cousin to Manchester, but they are in the midst of a regeneration with many independent outlets opening up around Underbank and the 700-year-old marketplace. I do hope though that they retain the heritage and do not build a plethora of tower blocks as they have to excess in Manchester. They do also have a horror one way system and a ‘Wayward Pines’ car park with an overflow that on one occasion thought we would never be able to leave!

On the musical front, there is the remarkable fact the Jimi Hendrix Experience played not once but twice in Stockport in 1967, the first at the Sinking ship and a month later at the Tabernacle. The famous Strawberry Studios were located there, and it existed from 1968 to 1993 and was utilised by 10cc, The Smiths, Stone Roses, Paul McCartney and Joy Division. The upcoming band the Blossoms are from the town and other famous residents include the Crown actress Claire Foy and tennis legend Fred Perry.  

Jimi Hendrix Stockport flyer. Image Credit sevenmilesoutrecords.co.uk