The Death of Clubbing

Before there was Ministry of Sound and Ibiza and superstar DJ's, there was Manchester. It was the place to be in the 1980's, it had the best girls, the best music, the best drugs and the best club. The one club that that will be in everyone's mind, is the Hacienda. By the early 1990's, a small city in the north of England had become the clubbing capital of the world and if you were a manc everyone wanted a piece of you. "Madchester" had truly arrived. Yet throughout its 15 years existence, the club and its management never went through  financial stability. The Hacienda was ultimately a failure and this blog will examine why one of the best clubs of all time crashed and burned, leaving Manchester with a bunch of overrated pretentious nightclubs filled with mediocre footballers playing mediocre sounds.

The Hacienda was opened in 1982 and closed in 1992, the building no longer stands.

In May 1982 a consortium opened a nightclub in Manchester, mainly funded by the Anthony Wilson owned Factory Records and rock band New Order. Tony Wilson's dream was to create an environment that played great new wave music not dance music. Peter Hook of New Order describes the Hacienda as "very nice to look at" which was a good job as for several years no one was in it. Acts such as the Smiths and Madonna played in the Hacienda , but apart from premium nights the club was failing. It was empty and would remain that way until America decided to export house music to the UK. Through DJ's such as Frankie Knuckles, Adonis and Marshall Jefferson the underground was creeping into the overground and the Hacienda was built for it. With its wide gaping surroundings and hard interior the eclectic repetitive beats of House worked perfectly. Fellow DJ's such as Mike Pickering were correct by ripping the microphone out and getting rid of all bands.

There had been a musical revolution taking place around this period House music was coming out Chicago from 1983 and Detroit Techno would follow a year later, but the UK and especially the Hacienda would make it global. As this new dance phenomena grew the Hacienda became pivotal in Manchester's music scene and inspired new acts such as the Chemical Brothers. Stu Ellen had the Piccadilly Radio on a Sunday night and people were loving Acid House, the Hacienda was the best place to be, it was a club that was beyond people's ideas and imaginations.

Listed below are two of my favourite tracks that would have been 'tunes' regularly dropped in Manchester at the time;

Here we have a great combination, the best club playing the best music and being visited by thousands of ravers each week, what exactly went wrong? New Order lost around £10 million on the club which never made a profit  but somehow stayed open for 15 years. It never made a profit because it never met its alcohol quota, (clubs made their profits selling alcohol) as the clubbers of the Hacienda were being fueled by one thing. Extacy. As the club could not sell this illicit drug over the counter (though Tony Wilson did think about it), the only people getting rich out of the Hacienda were Manchester's gangsters.

People were going to the Hacienda on 'E' and having the time of their lives, but gangs were slowly putting a stop to this. Shootings were taking place both in and outside the club, so the management made the decision to hand the door over the very same people causing all the trouble, the gangsters. (the very well known and feared Noonan family) Now the management lost control of both the club and now the door and as the gangster population of the Hacienda increased the clubbing population literally decreased as Manchester was ripped apart by gang violence. After debts spiraled out of control and the treasure chest lay bare the club closed its doors, sadly for the last time with Spiritualized in June 1997. The club reportedly lost £18 million during its brief existence, it was calculated that for every one person that came through the door the Hacienda lost £10.

However, this club will always be remembered for its legacy and not that it eventually failed, as it sits aside the likes of Chicago’s Music Box and Berlin’s Tresor as clubbing extravaganzas. It changed the way we as a nation club and what we listen to. There was no VIP room at the Hacienda on one side of you could be Shaun Ryder or Ian Brown, that was the beauty of the place everyone was in it together, dancing as one. Dance music was now venerated throughout the UK and had become a chart phenomena. Drugs would now replace alcohol as the main choice for the English clubber and this spanned across the world to Ibiza and then to America in the form of EDM.

If the Hacienda was erected today it would never have worked, maybe because it should have never worked in the first place, but it hung on to life. It was a game changer and a trend setter it changed clubbing forever and left its own legacy not only on Manchester but the entire world. House music is now here to stay and it was the Hacienda that made it so, it created a frenzy which has not yet died and an addiction to living in the moment, for the now. YOLO

The well known 'smiley' was popularized in the acid house movement 

The building where the club sat now houses luxury apartments, but graffiti on its side shows the cities true feelings. "Rewind" is scrawled on the side of the building and maybe we should look backgrounds at the original super-club, the glory of the Hacienda.

Good luck in exams for those of us taking.

Death By Football

A look at one of the many Issues surrounding Manchester United

The Undocumented horrors of football life 

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the incident involving Ashley Williams and Robin Van Persie which occurred in the 1-1 draw between MUFC and Swansea and if not here is the video.

Surely such a vicious attack on the brave Dutch player would put the likes of Ron 'chopper' Harris and Billy Bremner to shame. You would probably see the same incident happen on a muddy pitch on a sunday at any local park in England and the two players would finish with a handshake, rather then attempting to rip the others head off. Though it is not the incident which has caused controversy in the football world last weekend, but the remarks of the acclaimed United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Ferguson obviously angered by the assault on his star player went on the rampage calling for Williams to "banned by the FA" while complaining that RVP's neck could have broken. However, what has come under heavy criticism by the soccer community, was the following comment that Van Persie is "lucky to be alive". This is something of an over-reaction by Sir Alex and there is an air of hypocrisy surrounding the red devils which is the focus of this article. I believe Ferguson punches way above his weight when it comes to media influence, I mean even the fact that this topic has been discussed over the past few days and likely weeks to come, shows the incredible reach Sir Alex has. If it had been the other way round, the views of Michael Laudrup sadly would not be worth commenting on.

Ferguson appears to be a man of double standards and was probably more concerned with his sides draw against lesser opposition then the health of his striker, but that argument is up for much debate. Moving on, we will now look back at the past to discover whether Ferguson was so quick to damn his own players when they attempted acts of murder as Ashley Williams clearly had done. 

When the seagulls follow the trawler

Eric Cantona 'kung-fu' style kick at Matthew Simmons

This is one of the most memorable events in football for all the wrong reasons. On the 25th of January 1995 'King Eric' saw red against Crystal Palace, not happy with his hack on defender Richard Shaw he followed that up by literally kicking out at a Palace fan for giving him abuse. Lee Sharpe describes how Sir Alex took the view that Eric "shouldn't be doing these things" and that he had sympathies with the emphatic striker taking offense to an over-exuberant referee. After 120 hours of community service and eight month league ban (United only wanted 4 months) Eric returned to a dazzling football career then branching out to movies, but I feel fans longer in the tooth will always look back to his incident of ABH. Alex Ferguson should obviously have called for bans and criminal punishment but for once old whiskey nose didn't get his knickers in a twist for something that was arguably a more damaging attack on another human being. 

Take that you cunt

Roy Keane's revenge tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland

In any critics list of dirtiest tackles of all time, this one has to feature in the top 3. It is a whirlwind of a challenge and Keane quite rightly was branded by the FA as bringing the "game into disrepute". The tackle effectively ended Haland's carrer, Keane's motive for the attack dated back to 1997 while he was laying injured on a damp Saturday at Elland Road, Haaland looking to add insult to injury (excuse the pun) shouted at Keane for diving. The Grudge was set and Keane had his mind made up, this extract from his autobiographer sums it up nicely, "I'd waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you cunt. And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries." Incredible as it seems by today's standards that this tackle was only awarded with a 3 match ban and a £5000 fine. Later punishment came with the release of Keane's autobiography released in 2002, but Ferguson actually defended the challenge and his motive behind it. Sir Alex believed that he had "no case to answer" and did not believe the FA needed to enact further punishment on the United captain. Regarding the previous example they may be a case that footballing was being dragged out of the dark ages, therefore Cantona did not need such a heavy reprimand though Keane committed the foul in footballs brighter years. 

The concern of whether football is a a contact sport is no longer an issue. Ferguson never flinched during these two disgraceful incidents, but was willing to blow his top at a simple kick of a football. Surely the only thing left is to ban footballs, or create some freak hybrid between a jabulani and a beach ball. What this whole event has shown is something that we in football all already know. That Ferguson is a media diva having too much influence for a man about to fall off his perch. The second is something that happens very rarely, Sir Alex has made a complete fool of himself by a simple over-reaction and lack of consistency. While criticizing the likes of Williams with one hand and protecting RVP with the other stings of bias, the reaction of many within football was that Van Persie's reaction was worse then supposed 'attack' by Ashley Williams. 

May Ferguson's self humiliation continue, I hope however when Michael Oliver next referees the red devils he does not feel Sir Alex's comments hanging heavy on his shoulders. I am sure that many Arsenal fans did enjoy RVP getting a good kicking for that all it was a bit of fun followed by an old man's over-exaggeration. Hopefully RVP will recover from the terrible attack and Williams be banned for the rest of the season. Ferguson you have branded yourself a joke, get back to the red wine and whiskey, leave the precious neck of Robin Van Persie to the medics and stick to tactics geeza.

Merry Christmas!

Dark Chocolate for Pre-Workout?

Today we will look at the effects of taking dark chocolate as a pre-workout.

Taking sugar based additives have always been a popular choice among weight trainers, but recently have been dropped in favor of the more stimulant heavy alternatives. Dark chocolate contains an alkaloid known as theobromine which has been recently been proved to improve athletic performance. In 2009, Willie Harcourt-Cooze with the help of Dr Emma Ross who is a senior lecturer in Sport and Service Management at Brighton University, conclusively proved that pure chocolate had a positive effect of athletic endurance.

This is not really a surprise as theobromine is an anti-oxidant which counter-acts the damage of free radicals when exercises occurs, particularly the cardio-vascular region. Another study conducted 2011 on rats concluded this theory when those that had been given the chocolate beverage, ran 50% further then those rats that had just drank water.

So with this information in hand I decided to put dark chocolate to the test and use it solely on its own as a pre-workout. Cost benefits aside, dark chocolate is obviously a healthier and natural option then the more stimulant heavy pre-workouts on the market such as Jack-3d and Craze. Other reasons for this trial were that I wanted to see how it compared to other cheap food sources out there such as apples or bananas which I have found effective.

I took 20 grams of dark chocolate (80%) 15 minutes before attempting a back workout on a full stomach. One of the most immediate effects on taking the chocolate was that I felt very alert, that may have been from the sugar content of the bar. Once in the gym I completed a number of super-sets finishing off with two normal exercises. (My workout can be found below) I felt fully energised though this may be down to the salmon I ate one hour prior to the gym. Funnily enough I felt no aching during my workout, however I believe this is down to the rest day I had on Sunday.

Overall I wouldn't recommend replacing your usually two scoops of Jack-3d with a bar of green and blacks. However if you don't take a supplement before exercise it could make a nice change from the norm. The jury is out on this maybe USP labs could adopt a bit of the dark stuff in their next pre-workout or dark chocolate craze could follow the hype of concentrated beetroot juice. I'll be sticking to an apple and leaving dark chocolate in the sweet tin.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!


Back Workout

Superset-4x10 (rest 1.30)
1) Wide Grip Lat-Pulldown
2) Close Grip Straight arm Pulldown
Superset-3x10
1) Wide Grip seated wire pull (rest 1.30)
2) Close Grip seated wire pull
Singular Exercise
1) Single arm dumbell row-8x3 (rest 1.00)
2) Close Grip Seated back pull-10x3 (to failure) (rest 1.00)