Aquarius Club (Yorkie's Bar, Edbro Social Club, Daubhill Social Club, Daubhill Athletic FC), Tabley Road, Bolton

On the left is the Aquarius Club pictured in 1974. On the right is the site of the Aquarius Club pictured 51 years later in 2025 (copyright Google).

1949 – Daubhill Athletic are formed at Willows Park. The club were banned from playing by the Lancashire Football Association between 1958 and 1961.

1961 – Daubhill Athletic revived and enter the Bolton Combination.

1963 – Daubhill Athletic Social Club is opened. An extension is built later that year.

1965 – Daubhill Athletic cease playing; however, the club remains open. The name Daubhill Athletic was revived by an unconnected Sunday League team between 1976 and 1996.

1969 – The club becomes Edbro Social Club.

1972 – The club is sold again and becomes the Aquarius Club.

1983 – The Aquarius is bought by Tony York and becomes Yorkies Cabaret Club.

1984 – Yorkie's closes down. The club catches fire in July of that year.

In September 1949 Daubhill Athletic Football Club played the first match at their Willows Park ground. The club had been formed earlier that year by Alf Sharrock and his brother Harry after the works team they played for at Swan Lane No 3 Mill refused to allow outsiders to play. Alf and Harry found an old shale pit at the back of Rumworth Park and spent six months moving 400 tonnes of rubbish and making the pit into something suitable for football. On Saturday 24 September 1949 Ald A Booth, JP performed a short opening ceremony before Daubhill took on Knowles Ltd in a first round tie in the Bolton Combination's Brown Cup competition. The visitors' F. Gaskell scored the opening goal in a 1-1 draw.

Alf was nothing if not ambitious and before too long the club had moved from the Bolton Combination up to the West Lancashire League. It also ran a summer football competition in which matches were played in the evening every April onwards. All matches were played at Willows Park with some attendances over 1000 for games in the latter stages of the competition.

A summer league organised for local youths brought Alf Sharrock and Daubhill Athletic treasurer Fred Riley into conflict with the Lancashire Football Association. The LFA were dead against summer football and in 1958 Alf and Fred were banned by the association; Daubhill Athletic were expelled from the West Lancashire League as a result and Willows Park was forbidden from hosting official football matches. Despite that the Daubhill Athletic Cup competition continued to take place. It was contested by scratch teams playing under names copied from top European clubs such as Real Madrid and Red Star.

The LFA ban was to last three years and was lifted in 1961, but plans had been made even before the ban for the construction of a clubhouse. In 1955 Daubhill Athletic was incorporated into a limited company, Daubhill Enterprises Ltd (later the Daubhill Development Company Ltd) and the company rented out garages on the site of The Willows with the aim of raising money to build up financial reserves.

In May 1962 Bolton Council gave the club permission to build its clubhouse which was opened in the early part of 1963 A 60-foot extension was added later that year. However, the football team lasted only four seasons after the LFA ban was lifted and it withdrew from Division 2A of the Bolton Combination in 1965. Apparently, the decision of three team members to emigrate to Australia led to the the team's demise as they could no longer raise eleven players.

Ad from August 1963

Despite the end of the football team Daubhill Athletic Social Club, as it was now called, continued much like any other working men's or political club in the town. There were bingo nights, dancing to artistes at the weekend; a resident rhythm club played modern popular songs and the club had its own compere. Financially it was supported by a daily draw organised by its development association. The 'Athletic' name was eventually dropped and the club was simply known as the Daubhill Social Club in local newspaper ads; however, to locals it was simply as 'The Shed'.

The size of the club made it a popular venue for the finals of darts competitions, both at local and county level, By 1965 the football ground was used every Sunday for dog-training sessions for all breeds organised by the Bolton Alsatian Club.

November 1968 

In 1968 four youths broke into the club and stole £350 in cash and 1000 cigarettes from a dispensing machine.

In 1969 the Daubhill Sports Club became the Edbro Sports and Social Club. Edbro operated engineering works on five sites across the south side of Bolton; it employed over 500 people and ran a thriving sports club that was looking for permanent premises. But although the club operated in much the same way as it had done as the Daubhill Social Club, Edbro's tenure lasted only three years and the premises were sold once again in the autumn of 1972.

The newly renamed Aquarius Club opened on 7 December 1972 with an appearance by popular cabaret singer Sheila Buxton. It was open until 1.30am six nights a week and it wasn't long before there were problems with the neighbours.

In January 1974 Bolton Council brought a case against the Aquarius under the Noise Abatement Act; however, the case was adjourned after the club's owners agreed to install an 'electronic orange' to cut noise levels. The Council agreed to give the club time to see if the equipment worked properly. But the problem didn't end there. Two months later the club's licence was up for renewal. There were 30 objections, mainly from people living nearby who complained about the noise coming from inside the club and from the sound of people driving their cars away late at night.

December 1972

The club paid for the services of a solicitor to fight its case, but what happened next was a PR disaster. Managing director John Hollingsworth wrote to each of the 30 objectors, many of them old age pensioners, threatening to sue them for the legal expenses he had run up fighting their objection.

“A considerable expense was involved by my Company in defending the case which would not have occurred had it not been for your objections,” he wrote

He then suggested that each person might have to pay £30 towards his legal costs – the equivalent of around £300 in 2026. Local councillor Roland Carr suggested that Mr Hollingsworth had no grounds to sue the objectors and the matter ended there. When approached by the Bolton Evening News Mr Hollingsworth admitted sending the letter but refused to comment further.

Ad from February 1975

There was more trouble for the Aquarius later in 1974. Police arrived at 11.15pm on a Sunday night and found over 50 people in the club enjoying a late drink. The club was only licensed until 10.30 on Sundays and in any case drinks could only be sold to members of the Aquarius Sunday Club. Mr Hollingsworth was fined £810 while bar manager George Greenfield was fined £421. Both fines were later reduced on appeal.

Acts appearing at the club during 1975 included Bernard Manning and Wayne Fontana, while the Christmas dance organised at the club by Deane Rangers Football Club included an appearance by Cannon and Ball. The Bolton Organ Society held monthly meetings at the Aquarius that included concerts and demonstrations of new models and those continued for a number of years.

In December 1976 the Aquarius was bought by local pools winner Danny Carr and his business partner Tommy Ivers of Creeme Entertainments. “We want to create a working man's theatre club – nothing too elaborate,” Mr Ivers told the Bolton Evening News (16 December 1976). “We want to concentrate on live entertainment featuring popular acts in the area but we will incorporate a disco as well.” A change of name was an option although that never transpired.

September 1980

By the late-seventies the Aquarius was putting on midweek rock gigs; former Cream drummer Ginger Baker appeared with his band Energy in November 1979, local radio personality Mike Sweeney played at the club with his band the Salford Jets in May 1980 and sixties psychedelic rockers Atomic Rooster appeared there in November 1980.

August 1980

But it's clear that the early-eighties were a difficult time for the Aquarius. People were heading to town rather than staying local and that had an obvious effect on trade.

In March 1981 the company that owned the club, Ledondale (Aquarius) Ltd, applied for planning permission to hold an outdoor market on the site. The application was rejected because councillors wanted to keep such retailing in the town centre and were unhappy about the effect of too much traffic on local access roads. In December 1981 the company applied to demolish the clubhouse and redevelop the land for housing. Again, the plan was rejected, but it was clear the club was struggling.

The Aquarius was also getting the wrong sort of reporting in the local press. In March 1982 police had to call in reinforcements to break up a fight in the club's car park; in July of that year police were called to reports of fighting both inside and outside the club, and just a few weeks after that a man was glassed in the face after protecting a teenage girl who was being pestered by another boy.

In December 1982 the Aquarius received a blow when its late licence was revoked. Ironically, given that the club's then owners were fined in 1974 for opening late on a Sunday, this time they lost their late licence for not being open often enough. Their licence at that time required the club to be open six nights a week; however, they were only opening on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The late licence had been in operation since the Aquarius opened in 1972.

In February 1983 Ledondale sold the Aquarius to theatrical agent Tony York. He was planning to spend £100,000 on what he was calling Yorkie's Cabaret Bar as soon as he could obtain a late licence. He would be open six nights a week with one night set aside for a possible “stag” presentation. “The theme will be New York and there will be plenty of razz-matazz,” he told the Bolton Evening News (10 February 1983). “We want a decent club here and I am full of confidence that we will succeed.”

Unfortunately he didn't. By June 1984 and after being open for little more than a year, the club was up for sale once again. It was destroyed by fire the following month and in December thieves broke in to the derelict building and stole a one-armed bandit and a fridge worth a total of £400. The rest of the club was eventually demolished and housing built on the site by the Irwell Valley Housing Association which was granted outline planning permission in December 1985 to build 29 homes and 31 flats for elderly people.