Many clubs across the UK are closing down through a variety of factors, though most often cited is the lack of younger people joining due to Sky TV and cheap alcohol from the supermarkets; with this in mind my aim is to try to capture the history to draw positive attention back to the clubs.
I have focused the project on two clubs in Blackpool; Waterloo Social Club on St Annes Road and The Blackpool Trades Club on Chadwick Street. Both of the clubs have long histories, Waterloo being built at the turn of the twentieth century and the The Trades Club in 1929; and both are now privatized through members buying out the clubs to save them being closed through bankruptcy. By privatizing the clubs they are taking them off the C.I.U. and so are no longer affiliated.
This body of work explores how social clubs have maintained strong communities, despite their struggle to survive in a difficult economic climate. Rather than focus on the individual members, I have chosen to look for the traces of community evident in the empty clubs.
