Off-the-wall plaques go up at Lads Club
QUIRKY ‘heritage plaques’ have been put up to record the visits of the famous to Salford Lads Club.
Twenty of the cheeky signs have gone up at the iconic Edwardian building.
An exhibition, called ‘Albert Finney Was Never A Member’, has seen them installed in rooms around the building.
They include one to Graham Nash and Alan Clarke, who in their pre-Hollies days performed in a minstrel troupe in 1956 at the club. Maxine Peake’s visit is also commemorated, when she ‘wore a pair of Marigolds in the kitchen’ to film a clip about Prestwich comedian and writer, Victoria Wood.
They were the idea of Lads Club artist Leslie Holmes and were designed by Amber Sanchez.
Another plaque commemorates the day in 2009 that Wayne Rooney and the late Frank Sidebottom were together in the gym – with 170 extras – filming an advert for a Playstation game.
Johnny Marr gets a mention as he ‘hated’ THAT photo taken of The Smiths outside the Lads Club in 1985.
Other plaques are to ‘Our Enry’ Cooper, who served tea here 1962; Mike Joyce, Andy Rourke and Craig Gannon, who rehearsed with Vinnie Peculiar 2005 – 2007; ‘Corrie & Shameless’, which were filmed there in 2014; Jo and Neil, who got married in the Smiths Room, 2016; Cecil, Thomas, Wilfred, William, the first Smiths here in 1903; Peter Hook who played five-a-side football with his mates here in 1968; ‘Mr Muscle’ Tony Holland, who wiggled his pecs and won ITV’s Opportunity Knocks in 1964; and Tony Walsh, poet who performed there in 2013.