A popular Liverpool social club and football pitches that "everybody loved" has had a key reminder of its past saved.
For more than 60 years, the Edinburgh Park Dockers' Club, off Townsend Lane, had been a proud hub, not just for the surrounding Anfield and Clubmoor community, but for the city. The site started its life as a brickworks and clay pit and later became the home of Breck Park Stadium, a Greyhound track, in April 1927.
But following a fire that swept through the stadium, the greyhound track closed. The grounds later hosted sports and social activities for Merseyside dock workers, their families and the wider community from 1949 and in April 1953, The Duke of Edinburgh famously opened the Merseyside dockers' sports stadium and it was named Edinburgh Park.
Read More:
- 28 photos capture lost city-centre hotel and the celebrities who went there
- Scandal hit nightclub and celebrity haunt that sold '30-litre Champagne bottle' for '£125K'
More recently the home of grassroots and amateur football in Liverpool, thousands graced its pitches while its bars and halls were a popular social venue. Terry O'Callaghan has fond memories of visiting the site, climbing its gates a child and enjoying his first pint at the social club.
Terry told the ECHO: "It was my playground as a kid in my teenage years. We had the Dockers' Club and to the left and we had the BRS, the British Road Services and the bin yard to the rear.
"For me and my mates, it was a big adventure to go over the gates and just mess around in the hills. Our summers were spent in the Dockers' Club and when we played truant we’d climb over and be in the Dockers' Club
"We played footy and cricket and old school games like British bull dog. I also had my first pint in there, my dad used to drink there.
"Social clubs , they’re not the 'in thing' for kids any more. When I was growing up, you’d go to a social club, you'd watch a turn, you’d be there for the night, but you've got so many different bars around now. But they kept it going as long as they could."
By 2010, the Dockers Club still had 12 local amateur teams using the pitches as well as university teams, local schools, a junior goalkeeping school, a retired members bowls team and a pigeon racing club. But a few years after, its entirety, including the football pitches, were fenced off and excluded from public access following the 2013/14 football season.
Speaking to the ECHO when the club closed, the trustees said the closure of the club was the "end of an era" but that it had been making a loss for several years and couldn’t survive. After its closure, the site became a hotspot for anti-social behaviour, including numerous fires.
What are your memories of the Dockers' Club? Let us know in the comments section below.
A number of plans for the site did not materialise, including overhauling the club to retain it as a community asset. And Tesco also planned to create a superstore on the site.
In 2018 the land became the subject of a planning application by one of the UK’s largest housebuilders with Persimmon Homes revealing proposals to build 232 homes on the site. But despite the demolition of the once loved social club, part of its history lives on.
Join our Liverpool memories and history Facebook group here.
In more recent years, Terry, with permission to enter the site, has documented and uncovered what was left behind before demolition was complete. But now the gates he once used to climb as a kid, that the late Duke of Edinburgh famously drove through upon opening the Park's Sports Ground, have been restored and have found a new home.
Persimmon Homes have restored the original gates from the Dockers'Club in Anfield and donated them to the Seascope Maritime Training centre in Fazakerley. Taking six weeks to complete, the team have spent £3,000 to sandblast and coat the cast iron gates to match their original colour as much as possible.
Terry said it was the symbols of anchors, dockers hooks and a boat on the Mersey which made him think it was "too good to be scrapped." Working with site manager Chris Jordan from Persimmon Homes and Alfie Hinks, owner and director of the the Seascope Maritime Training centre, Terry said it "couldn't have been relocated to a better place."
Terry said: "Everyone loved the Dockers' Club, everyone has got fond memories of it. It was there for 60 years, it served generations of people.
"Going back to when I was a kid, the dockers did so much for the community. They put on buses at Christmas for the kids to take them to the pantomime, this was all done by the dockers themselves.
"The day the last wall came down when it was demolished was the day the Duke of Edinburgh passed away, April 9, so it's a bizarre coincidence. It's part of history saved as far as I'm concerned."
Based on Longmoor Lane in Fazakerley, Seascope provides training for thousands of new and current Seafarers from the UK and other countries every year, as well as help them find jobs and new career roles afterwards. Business operations manager Tom Hinks said since they announced the Dockers Club gates would be erected on their site, the response has been "nothing but positive."
He told the ECHO: "Our company is a family run business. Alfie, my dad, he started the company and his dad, my grandad, he worked as a docker himself going back years, so there’s a personal connection there. Because of the important role the dockers played in the early stages of Liverpool, being a popular cargo destination and the ports, they helped develop and build up that reputation to what it is today.
"We get thousands of new and current seafarers come to our centre, not only from the UK but from other countries around the world, so to have the gates conveniently located in our centre and to be able to explain the history behind it, it's and honour and a privilege and we’re absolutely made up with that opportunity. We were made up and Persimmon Homes were made up that it didn't get scrapped because it has been made into a bit of a monument."
Today, Dan Carden MP, Ian Byrne MP, councillors and dockers joined the teams at Seascope for the official unveiling of the gates with a plaque ceremony. Paul Mascord, Construction Director for Persimmon North West said: "We’re delighted to have been able to save such a historical local artefact and restore the gates to their former glory.
“The Dockers Club was a much loved community facility for more than 60 years and so we were keen to honour the legacy of the club where we could. It was great to join local dignitaries to see the gates unveiled, preserving the memory of the Dockers' Club for years to come here at Seascope."
For more nostalgia stories, sign up to our Liverpool Echo newsletter here.
Dan Carden, Member of Parliament for Liverpool Walton, said: "The Dockers’ Club was the social hub of Liverpool’s dockworkers and is an important part of Walton’s history. I have many happy memories of the club from my childhood. As the local MP and someone who comes from a long line of dockworkers, it is profoundly moving to see the gates restored within the constituency.
"Liverpool’s docks were the beating heart of our city’s social and economic life. Dock labour and trade unionism shaped our city and its unique character in so many ways. It is vitally important that we preserve that history of solidarity and struggle."
Ian Byrne, Member of Parliament Liverpool West Derby, said: "I would like to thank everyone involved for saving this piece of social and trade union history. The Dockers' Club in West Derby meant so much to so many, and I was delighted to unveil the gates today, knowing that they will be preserved as a symbol of our maritime heritage."
To find out more about the Seascope Maritime Training centre in Fazakerley, click here.
Receive newsletters with the latest news, sport and what's on updates from the Liverpool ECHO by signing up here
Read Next:
- 19 photos show lost Liverpool factory and those who worked there
- 22 photos show early days and staff at demolished Liverpool hotel
- Vanished city centre hotel loved by celebrities and tourists for over 30 years
- 22 photos show lost Liverpool factory and those who worked there
- 'Chock-a-block' venue that was 'the place' everyone wanted to be
