Tony's Ballroom Headlines 8-11-1988

[jimmy clitheroe]

Came across this newspaper the other day, Front page of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph 8-11-1988

[Chatty]

You look back now at the furore of the time and doesn't it bring a wry smile to your face, was it a case of being  easy targets?

I don't think there would be a toilet in any half decent sized village public house these days that doesn't have traces of the old Columbian marching powder in them, yet no one mentions it.

Is it because it's the drug of choice of the "Establishment", or have the authorities just admitted defeat?

 

[Guyh]

The Police at the licensing meeting lied through their collective teeth. They presented a case for refusing the license citing(and I kid you not), a murder, a bank robbery and a burglary as being the direct responsibility of people attending the allnighter. It turned out that when quizzed both by me and a couple of councillors(out of the 12 present) that in fact the only misdemeanour they could prove was a car parked the wrong way on Town Hall Street. Oh, and the Pizza Shop owner was only pissed-off because he'd stayed open late for the allnighter one night, thinking he'd cash-in, only to find out that very very few of the allnighter attendees were hungry...excellent! I hadn't seen that article before, cheers. G

Edited October 3, 2016 by guyh
Mis-spelling

[Geeselad]

interestingly at the same time, revenge were doing massive illegal raves for thousands, 50k sound systems ect, but it took the rozzers a while to catch on to it. I can remember hearing one on the way to Tony's as we stopped at little chef just outside Blackburn.

Edited October 4, 2016 by geeselad

[SOULMAN62]

On ‎02‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 10:18, jimmy clitheroe said:

Came across this newspaper the other day, Front page of the Lancashire Evening Telegraph 8-11-1988

 

[SOULMAN62]

Used as shop storage at the moment I believe

[Guyh]

It was those illegal raves that eventually got the Soultown allnighters at Blackburn closed down. It was a precedent in the licensing act that I operated under, not a law i.e. card carrying Soultown members only and membership applied for at least 24hrs before the event. The raves around London got busted, and a chap called Tony Courser-Hater who was at least fronting a few of them got nicked. In the resulting very fast-tracked court-case, he and his legal team used in his defence(the arseholes) that he operated under the same precedent and practices that Soultown used, which of course he didn't. And therefore he obviously lost the case, he was gonna lose anyway as we all knew, the Establishment was after stomping down hard on the whole rave culture. Him losing the case meant that the precedent was ripped out and thus allowed the Police to close Blackburn down again, over the councils head. I had a similar problem with the Soultown Mexborough allnighters. I would have loved to have punched that Courser-Hater chaps lights-out at the time, what a twat!

[Woodbutcher]

Tony Colston-Hayter's just done a 5-1/2 year stretch for bank fraud ... 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3332694/Acid-House-King-handcuffed-Jonathan-Ross-skimmed-1-25million-bank-accounts-sophisticated-cyber-heist-ordered-repay-just-1.html

[Chalky]

Do you still have the newspaper @jimmy clitheroe? I could use that in the book.  I also need the one from the Winding Wheel allnighters getting closed down, would be Derbyshire Times. 

[Guyh]

So the buggers locked-up...superb! Karma is alive and well.

 

[Geeselad]

18 hours ago, WoodButcher said:

Tony Colston-Hayter's just done a 5-1/2 year stretch for bank fraud ... 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3332694/Acid-House-King-handcuffed-Jonathan-Ross-skimmed-1-25million-bank-accounts-sophisticated-cyber-heist-ordered-repay-just-1.html

make a good movie, that guys life.

[Davenpete]

On 4 October 2016 at 08:15, chalky said:

Do you still have the newspaper @jimmy clitheroe? I could use that in the book.  I also need the one from the Winding Wheel allnighters getting closed down, would be Derbyshire Times. 

I have the newspaper clipping from Melody Maker (or whatever it was - my brother got it).

Dx

[Chalky]

43 minutes ago, DaveNPete said:

I have the newspaper clipping from Melody Maker (or whatever it was - my brother got it).

Dx

Any chance of high res scan Dave?

[Winsford Soul]

The bobbies where right about one thing though. People would travel from as far away as Southampton and Edinburgh to attend Tony,s. and much further as it turned out. Hate it when the lying bastard,s are right. After Wigan. Tony,s empress for me alongside Bretby  where the best nighter,s ever.

Steve

[Amsterdam Russ]

The same Eddie Walsh as quoted in the newspaper article?

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/article/ex-police-chiefs-key-role-at-ewood-262407.aspx

[Amsterdam Russ]

Interesting article here from the Lancashire Telegraph showing the reporting of the illegal "acid house raves" that were taking place around the same time as the nighters...

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/13793051.Blackburn___s_acid_house_raves_remembered/

[Chris Turnbull]

No alcohol allowed lol, I remember one time thinking it would be a good idea to drop some acid I had been given - lasting memory is of Eddie Whitehead 'Just your fool' sounding like it was being played backwards and thinking pint glasses were sliding off the tables

[Davenpete]

Remember one night sat in the corner with Pete in our usual state when two heavy types in donkey jackets came in. They took one look at us and made a bee-line, plonked themselves directly in front of us and kept looking round and staring - I was packed off to get a drink and see if anyone knew them - they didn't and everyone swore they were squad, in fact when I returned everyone else around us had 'drifted off' to get a drink and failed to return - like vampires cowering away from the light. I sat back down trying, prompting them to stand up, turn round and I expected to flash their warrant cards - instead they drunkenly blurted out 'Pete isn't it? Haven't seen you since the Torch' - turned out it was their first nighter since about 74 (Pete it turned out knew them well - forget their names - one was Joe).

I always remember how there was a tide mark of states at the top of the stairs by the end of the night - us included - everyone used to bomb up their for verbals when they were flying high and then inevitably decided the long flights of threatening stone steps were simply too dangerous to make it down once they moved into the electric zombie stage after about 5.00am - even saw a few making their way down on their backsides one step at a time.

Dx

Edited October 5, 2016 by DaveNPete

[Davenpete]

Found the scan on the discs from when I did the Top 500 book - this is full print quality.

Dx

 

PS If there are any images from the Top 500 book (most of the memorabillia is either mine or Pete's, obviously I can't let you have things I don't own) - like the boss' Wigan membership #0217 give me a shout.

Edited October 5, 2016 by DaveNPete

[Rhino]

plenty of soul goers went to raves yes it may of caused a few problems but it was just another youth movement like soul,punk,mods and new romantics etc enjoyed some great raves and was involved in running some of the biggest in north of england post breaking in warehouses using the same private club membership to get around the sunday observance act. blackburn was the main area of illegal warehouse raves and had the police in lancashire going crazy. so maybe that was one of the reasons of stopping soul allnighters not just the london raves i could go on but that was the main reason lancashire constabulary where objecting in my opinion

[Chalky]

4 hours ago, DaveNPete said:

Found the scan on the discs from when I did the Top 500 book - this is full print quality.

Dx

 

PS If there are any images from the Top 500 book (most of the memorabillia is either mine or Pete's, obviously I can't let you have things I don't own) - like the boss' Wigan membership #0217 give me a shout.

Many thanks Dave, appreciated mate. 

[Guyh]

On 4 October 2016 at 07:59, WoodButcher said:

Tony Colston-Hayter's just done a 5-1/2 year stretch for bank fraud ... 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3332694/Acid-House-King-handcuffed-Jonathan-Ross-skimmed-1-25million-bank-accounts-sophisticated-cyber-heist-ordered-repay-just-1.html

Eyup Rhino, as I remember the cops were after stopping the SoulTown allnighters before the local raves started. You are right in that it was driven by Preston-Lancs Constabulary, for sure. The local beat coppers and the Saturday desk sergeant were very good really. They came in for a brew a couple of times, helmets off(no authority) and said they thought it was brilliant having a "do" with so many people and no trouble. In fact one night, a young copper came in twice for about half an hour because he thought the music was "ace". One night, a right twat of an officer with a swagger-stick under his arm was berating me because Tommo, Oz et al were on the fruit machines, which seemingly weren't licensed for use after midnight. This arse-wipe officer was waving his stick in my face at the top of the stairs, and behind him was the duty-sergeant pulling faces at me trying to make me laugh whilst flashing the V's at the officers back. The sergeant came back an hour later and apologised for the officer being a twat...

[Mark Soul]

fantastic allnighter was tonys always remember jumpin joan strutting her stuff great times cheers mark

[Guest BabyBoyAndMyLass]

Regularly used to attend this niter late eighties, used to take a car full of one-arm bandit addicts, and bags and bags of sweeties. Bang in the middle of Blackburn. Happily I can remember absolutely nothing about it, apart from one time, on the way back, everyone in the car singing 'Ain't no big thing' so assume that The Radiants was a spin there. Lot of Bury lads, Macclesfield and Crewe lads used to go there, I know cause they used to try to paranoid me out, me being so young, never worked though. Wasn't that great for lasses however. Cracking niter though.

Edited October 10, 2016 by BabyBoyAndMyLass
Grammar

[Chalky]

11 hours ago, BabyBoyAndMyLass said:

Regularly used to attend this niter late eighties, used to take a car full of one-arm bandit addicts, and bags and bags of sweeties. Bang in the middle of Blackburn. Happily I can remember absolutely nothing about it, apart from one time, on the way back, everyone in the car singing 'Ain't no big thing' so assume that The Radiants was a spin there. Lot of Bury lads, Macclesfield and Crewe lads used to go there, I know cause they used to try to paranoid me out, me being so young, never worked though. Wasn't that great for lasses however. Cracking niter though.

Ain't No Big Thing would have been the Jordan Brothers, Rob Marriott the Dj.

[Kev Cane]

10 hours ago, BabyBoyAndMyLass said:

Regularly used to attend this niter late eighties, used to take a car full of one-arm bandit addicts, and bags and bags of sweeties. Bang in the middle of Blackburn. Happily I can remember absolutely nothing about it, apart from one time, on the way back, everyone in the car singing 'Ain't no big thing' so assume that The Radiants was a spin there. Lot of Bury lads, Macclesfield and Crewe lads used to go there, I know cause they used to try to paranoid me out, me being so young, never worked though. Wasn't that great for lasses however. Cracking niter though.

More likely to be Rob Marriots  Jordan Brothers version of "Aint no big thing"

Us lads from Aycliffe in the NE loved Guy's Blackburn and especially Mexborough do's, happy days

Kev

[Guest BabyBoyAndMyLass]

Cheers Chalky and Kev, never heard of it!

But yeah I'll take your word for that, I have the song on Chess by The Radiants, always assumed that was the one, but yes thanks for the heads-up.

One thing I don't recall, having thought about it reading up the thread, is I can't recall any fuss with the fuzz at the place.

I remember an associate dropping 150 quid out of the one-arm bandit at Blackburn, later we went to an all-day snooker club and he put the whole lot into another bandit and dropped about a fiver! Some of my most vivid memories of allniters were the bandit addicts, there were loads of 'em, bet we all knew one or two, or were one, they spent the whole allniter playing 'em. A friend once told me to guard the bandit with my life as it was about to drop but he'd run out of money, it caused quite a fuss because another guy had been watching the machine and also knew it was about to pay out! I stood there pretending to play it and the guy was getting a bit frustrated, soon though my mate turned up having borrowed all his missus dough, he put another big chunk of cash in and still it didn't pay out, the machine had been set to not pay out! Keele it was, the machine owner must've been wise to the fact that allniter goers were like a magnet to the bandits!

I lived at that time in a shared house with a Hell's Angel, between us we bought an old early nudge machine and fixed it, set it to non-pay and guys used to come back to ours after the pub or after an allniter and put all their change into it, great it was!

Thing is the bandit guys didn't know that the machines can be set so that they don't win, used to make me laugh, small things amuse small minds eh? We'd take tons of risks to get some dough and then most of it'd go in the bandit, not my share though!

I dunno, things you remember eh? I didn't play the bandits myself, Morecombe was funny as well for the same reason.

Happy days!

 

[Davenpete]

Sounds like Martin Brogan and Curley to me - remember Brian Rae dropping £100 out of the machine and then another £50 later on.

Dx

[Guest BabyBoyAndMyLass]

22 hours ago, DaveNPete said:

Sounds like Martin Brogan and Curley to me - remember Brian Rae dropping £100 out of the machine and then another £50 later on.

Dx

Hi, no it wasn't those guys. I know precisely who it was in my tale, but I'm not saying no to your comment obviously, as I said before I'm sure we all knew lads who played the bandits and have similar tales to the one I told. Do recall Brian being into the bandits as well!