The Smiths, a Picture and the Salford Lad´s Club

In the northern English industrial city of Salford, located on Coronation Street not far from the city boundary with Manchester, there is a place of pilgrimage for pop music fans from all over the world: the Salford Lads Club, founded in 1903. The reason why thousands of visitors are drawn to this working-class neighbourhood year after year is their love for the indie-rock band The Smiths. Through an iconic photograph, the band is forever linked with the club.

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 The image appears on the inside cover of The Smiths’ 1986 LP The Queen Is Dead, perhaps their finest album. It was taken by photographer Stephen Wright; the black-and-white shot shows the band members Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, who died in May 2023, and Mike Joyce in front of the club’s entrance. A document of its time, one that symbolises youth, attitude and hope against the bleakness of the surroundings and the tense economic situation of that era. Wright himself attributes the effect of the photograph partly to Morrissey’s Mona Lisa-like expression, with which he casually dominates the scene.

My friend Bernd Socha, a committed follower of The Smiths since their first single, “Hand in Glove”, released in 1983, and I are visiting long-standing friends in Salford, the twin town of our hometown Lünen, when we set off for a quick visit to the Salford Lads Club. It is probably only thanks to the English rain that we are allowed to tour the club entirely on our own. And, on top of that, with the artist and club manager Leslie Holmes as our exclusive guide and storyteller. He simply invites us in when we arrive outside visiting hours and let ourselves get soaked outside in order to do what almost all visitors do not want to miss: recreate the legendary photo from the Smiths’ LP cover. What luck! And what a hospitable man, burning with enthusiasm for his cause, showing us every corner of the building.

To brighten young lives …

Leslie Holmes knows, of course, exactly why we have come, but he saves the best for last. First, he speaks passionately about the work of the club and its mission, “to brighten young lives and make good citizens”. In other words: the club was founded to get boys from the working-class districts off the streets and keep them away from gangs. The club’s wide range of activities has been documented right back to its earliest days; photographs of all the holiday camps ever held there can be seen, as well as newspaper cuttings and photos of celebrities who have visited and/or supported the club. Johnny Marr, guitarist and composer of The Smiths, is one of them. After the band split up in 1987, he stayed in the region and has repeatedly helped the club with fundraising, while Morrissey departed for Los Angeles.

Holmes has had the names of all the young people who were ever members of the Salford Lads Club immortalised in a huge metal installation. And anyone who looks closely will also discover the name GW Nash there. This is none other than Graham William Nash, who founded The Hollies in the 1960s with his schoolmate Allan Clarke and, as a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young), helped shape the music of the hippie era. He remains active as a solo artist to this day. Standing in the event hall, we can easily imagine how he and his Hollies, still green behind the ears, rehearsed on this stage at the Salford Lads Club – incidentally just two streets away from the home of that Jennifer Eccles about whom the band sang in the song of the same name. Not much has changed here: the club breathes continuity and tradition, creating space for sports, education and leisure activities, as it has done for more than 100 years. In the book The Manchester Musical History Tour, the authors Phill Gatenby and Craig Gill also report that Peter Hook of Joy Division/New Order likewise belonged to the club and that Dream Theatre filmed videos for “Life in a Northern Town” there.

In the holy of holies

Only after Leslie Holmes has familiarised us with the history and work of the club, which has officially long been called the “Salford Lads and Girls Club”, does he lead us to the holy of holies: the former equipment room of the central club gymnasium, which is dedicated to The Smiths. It is an impressive tribute, one the fans have helped to create. The walls are plastered with photos, newspaper cuttings and posters. Countless Post-it messages from the band’s followers fill the last remaining square centimetres. Old weights and dumbbells lie in front of the walls just as they always have. Nothing here is museum-like; everything is improvised, lovingly pieced together and subject to constant change. There is probably no place where one can come so close to the phenomenon of The Smiths and feel their cultural force so strongly. In order to decipher the rich symbolism and subtle messages in this room, however, one sometimes needs Holmes’s knowledgeable explanations.

This applies, for example, to the reference to the play A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney from the late 1950s. Set in Salford, the play addresses questions of ethnicity, class and sexual orientation with an openness that was unusual for the time. It belongs to “kitchen sink realism”, an artistic movement that, in the mid-20th century, commented bluntly on the social situation of the working class in Britain. As is well known, A Taste of Honey had a major influence on The Smiths. And against this background, the fact that the band became successful at a time when the conservative prime minister Maggie Thatcher had practically declared war on the working class (“Thatcherism”) appears only logical. “The Smiths are to Manchester what the Beatles were to Liverpool,” Leslie explains confidently.

Morrissey’s sharp tongue

Bernd has always known the importance of the band. “Back then I listened to Morrissey’s lyrics and immediately thought: yes, exactly, that’s how it is, that’s how life feels to me in many situations,” he tells me when, stunned by our unexpected experience, we are back out on the rain-soaked street. I myself only discovered The Smiths when they had long since ceased to exist. Their guitar sound, their songwriting and Morrissey’s biting, milieu-true lyrics – at times wonderfully ironic, at times exaggeratedly melancholic – fascinate me more today than they did back in the 1980s. At the same time, I am speechless that he has by now turned into a supporter of the far-right cranks of “For Britain”.

The Queen Is Dead – the title alone is a provocation – shows Morrissey at the height of his powers. In “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”, he climbs to a declaration of love of a very special kind. To be run over together by a double-decker bus, he suggests, would be a “heavenly way” to die. In “Cemetery Gates”, he sings of a debate between two young people about poetry and reveals himself as a devotee of Oscar Wilde, the “wild lover”. In “Bigmouth Strikes Again”, he addresses with biting cynicism the reaction of the British media to his persona and his lyrics, comparing himself to Joan of Arc as the flames reach her Roman nose. Morrissey on the media stake. Yes, he seems to feel quite at home there. And in the title track, “The Queen Is Dead”, he takes aim at the British monarchy, visualised on the cover by a still of the actor Alain Delon from the 1964 film L’Insoumis (Die Hölle von Algier).

A provocation for monarchists

But back to the legendary photograph in the album’s gatefold sleeve: when it appeared in 1986, the Salford Lads Club was run by an ardent monarchist. She was “not amused” to see her club in the context of a record called The Queen Is Dead. The club had not given permission for the photograph and was concerned that the institution might be associated with the provocative lyrics of The Queen Is Dead. The result was a rift between the club and the photographer. Only when Leslie Holmes took responsibility for the club could the dispute be overcome. By now, the club is allowed to use the iconic image again and again for its merchandising, thereby boosting the funds for its still vitally important work with young people. And all of this despite the fact that none of The Smiths was ever a member of the Salford Lads Club.