The Crusader Club was a newspaper club somewhere near the Express Building when the northern edition of the Daily Express and other dailies were published in Manchester. This great passage on the Gentlemen Ranters site talks of "the murky world of the Crusader Club. Stairs as black as ink, rubbery swing doors... beer-stained table on the left... (I'm sleeping in my car at the back of the Cheshire Cheese)... the first edition has parked and there is a mass exodus of van men up the stairs. The ground above us begins to vibrate as the trucks rattle into life... down here in The Crusader... it's our world beneath the gutter. It's a funny world as we stay 'til thre, four, in the morning, every morning [1]." Clearly a basement club, the Crusader may be been around the back of the Express Building, or perhaps down Luna Street or George Leigh Street. Anyone shed any light on this one?
Howdyado!
ReplyDeleteIt was me who wrote that passage about the crusader club - thanks for the compliment ... i spent a big part of my life in the Crusader Club, a fabulously drunken and dirty place, i loved it there. I remember i used to walk across the loading bay at the back of the Express building - we all took our lives in our hands then, newspaper delivery wagons didn't hang around - and you'd take a right at the end of the building and there it was, the Crusader. I think it was part of the main building, sharp steps down and a big (for some reason) rubber door at the top of them where you came in!
Thanks Leigh, we'll have a proper look round the back there sometime soon
ReplyDeleteMy dad used to run the club sid Garfield
ReplyDeleteI remember Sid, he would let us in after ringing the door bell, sometimes saying “cmon in you piss pots” he had room to talk. I can’t remember the name of the beer but the taste was awful, it took a few pints to get used to it! We would be on the dart board most of the night. We worked (skived) at Longsight BR sheds and would get the empty train out to Piccadilly about 11:30pm and return in the morning on the paper vans about 6am, to clock off, not that I remember much after those sessions. We gave Sid a nick name “Front wheel” less the word “skid” for some reason?. Well those were the days.
ReplyDeleteI worked at Express Newspapers 79 to 89, not aware of a club called Crusader Club although there was a club in Luna Street called The Ponderosa.
ReplyDeleteDid it used to be the Crusader?