Finding the Phoenix Club
Today, Andy and I returned from what I’ve been referring to as The Lancashire Invasion, largely because of our “invasion” of Lancashire. See what I did there?
We’ve been doing a theme park tour of the UK this year, and after visiting many of the UK parks (Alton Towers, Drayton Manor, Flamingo Land, Pleasure Island and so on) it was time to visit the two parks up in Lancashire. So, early Monday morning we set off to Blackpool for our yearly visit to the pleasure beach. Rode most of the rides, saw the show Eclipse in the evening, making a great end to the day. We strolled down to the Blackpool Tower next, hoping to go up at the cheaper night rate. It was about a mile and a half to walk and no sooner did we reach the entrance to the tower, did all it’s lights go out. The tower closed for the night seconds before we got there. Bah! On the plus side, we did go past the Lyndene Hotel, used for the external shots of La Ponderosa in the Phoenix Nights TV series. Got some photo’s of that coming at a later date.
Anyhow, we had another early start this morning and set off early from Blackpool, to our next destination, Pleasureland Southport. This was a new park for both of us and it wasn’t too bad. A few nice roller coasters, although Cyclone was a little on the rough side. To our delight, it was only £10 for a day ticket instead of the usual £20. Quite a good job in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great day, but I don’t think there’s enough there for me to visit on a normal day and feel I’m getting my money’s worth for £20.
We were on the road again by about 3pm and it was on this long drive from Southport back to little old Doncaster, that we visited a couple of places that mean a lot in our little world. First was Bolton West services on the M61. A service station you’re thinking? What’s so good about that? It happens to be the very service station at which Peter Kay filmed “The Services” in “That Peter Kay Thing”. The station was also used in an episode of “Phoenix Nights”, where bouncers Max and Paddy drive to france on a booze run to stock the new club. This stop was the perfect mood setter for our next visit, the one and only…Phoenix Club! Yes, the real one (St. Gregory’s Social Club).
We had been joking about visiting the club for quite some time, but when we found out it was so close to the M61, we couldn’t just drive past without taking a look, so we set ourselves a mish to Find the Phoenix Club. The club isn’t actually in Bolton, where the Phoenix Club is set in the TV series. It’s actually in Farnworth which is outside Bolton and very convenient for us! 
Andy will be working on the video of the weekend soon, but in the meantime, it’s time to share some photo’s. Take a look at these if you’re wondering whether it really was the same club… 
