‘I like it here can I stay?’: the Salford Lads Club – in pictures

Youth centre immortalised by the Smiths on the sleeve of their third studio album The Queen Is Dead, is under threat of closure. Guardian photographer Chris Thomond paid a visit

by · the Guardian

Volunteer Chris Brierley in the Smiths Room at Salford Lads Club, a Grade II-listed building and the only pre-first world war lads club still in existence, on the city’s Ordsall estate. The building was opened in 1903 and was later immortalised by the Smiths on the sleeve of their album The Queen Is Dead. The club has launched an emergency appeal as it faces closure within weeks unless it can plug a £250,000 funding shortfall

Vintage bodybuilding apparatus and photographs in the Smiths Room

Contributions by fans adorn the wall of the Smiths Room

Fundraising merchandise for sale at the club

A Smiths lyric on the woodwork

The junior games room

Fans recreate the famous photograph of the club

The rising costs of maintaining and running the Grade II-listed building, as well as a drop in grant funding, have left it with a shortfall of about £250,000

Opened 120 years ago in Ordsall, it continues to provide a lifeline to young people from some of Greater Manchester’s most deprived communities, offering sports and other activities six days a week

The boxing gym at the club

Initially founded as a club for boys but now open to all young people, it was officially opened in January 1904 by Robert Baden-Powell, who later founded the Scout movement

The interior still features many of its original fittings. English Heritage said the club was ‘thought to be the most complete example of this rare form of social provision to survive in England’

Boxing memorabilia at the gym

Vintage bodybuilding photographs in the Smiths Room

The Smiths Room. The club intends to set up a Salford Lads and Girls Club legacy fund, which will be invested into a permanent trust, to help to secure its future survival

The archive room

The club wants to hire new staff, to professionalise the running of the club, making it better able to compete for grant funding. It faces annual bills of £15,000 for utilities and £13,000 for insurance, as well as building maintenance costs of £15,000