Former members of Crewe's LMR club have recalled their memories of the popular venue - 114 years after it first opened in the town.

Last week Nub News reported that work on the former LMR football pitch had started for a 73-home 'affordable' housing scheme from The Guinness Partnership.

The LMR Club in Goddard Street, Crewe, hosted family occasions, sports teams and clubs in the 'West End' for 101 years.

After being built in 1908, the rail social club had decades of success, it also survived a fire and was rescued from the brink of closure on a number of occasions.

The club finally closed in 2009 and the site remained derelict until this year.

David Bamford from Crewe, recalled memories of the LMR Club to Nub News: "I used to go in to Goddard Street club as a kid with my mum and dad back in the late 70s to mid 80s. I went on a Friday night until I was 14 or 15. It was a great club and I have happy memories of it.

"Our family used to live on Flag Lane and walk to it. It was a really great place where we had a laugh. My dad used to be chairman of the angling section there, he had been going from the 1950s and was a big fisherman. He used to go fishing, come to weigh it in at the club and then take it back.

"There always used to be a lot of people in there, it was a family tradition of ours to go. Football wasn't my era as much but my cousin George used to play a lot of regional football and played on the LMR.

"My aunty Joan Price was on the Ladies Committee at the LMR and her husband George Price had a role there too. The club has a big family history with us.

"It was expected in a way that houses would be built on it. It has been derelict for a long while."

Former Royal Mail Support Manager in Crewe, George Laycock said: "Our dad was an official of the LMR club and the football secretary until his death of Pancreas Cancer in 1947, aged 36.

"My dad, known as 'Rex', worked at Crewe Works during the day and was also chief electrician at the Lyceum Theatre in the evening."

The LMR football pitch and stands were set up before the club in 1903, by Crewe Engineer Frank Webb.

The pitch was played on for the last time back in 2007.

Former Treasurer of the LMR, David Parker, 64, told Nub News: "I was the secretary of the Crewe district league. We had all of our finals on that pitch and with it being a private ground, it was perfect for cup finals.

"We used to get over 1,000 people watching the games, there were really big crowds. People could sit in the stands and have a pint, it's very very sad that it's no longer with us.

"The playing surface was fantastic. It started off poor but all the drainage was done and mowed very well and it became well run. There were never any games called off.

"The local football leagues all used to use it. It was the home ground of Crewe Villa who I used to play for. I started working at Crewe Works in 1974 and we played the Crewe Works knockout on there."

Former Liverpool FC and Crewe Alexandra player Ian Callaghan MBE played on the LMR pitch for a special match held in the late 1970's.

The LMR club had to be partially rebuilt following the fire.

David said: "The fire was in the early 1980s and a new hire room was added on to the facility that improved it and modernised it.

"We used to have all the Crewe and District meetings in the function rooms. It was a great place for football and meetings.

"As Crewe works got smaller, the membership of the club decreased and less people used the place.

"The LMR's demise began in the late 1990s towards the early 2000s. The club was put up for sale.

"When the LMR was put to be sold, the new hire room put the value of the club up and was too expensive for the committee. This was a big blow. It was eventually sold for around £200,000."

Guinness Partnerships were ordered to pay £80,000 in compensation for the loss of the LMR pitch.

Discussions are ongoing for where a new football pitch in Crewe could be located.

For ideas about a new football pitch, David added: "McLaren Street would be as good as a place as anywhere. It has a large grass area for a pitch, right now it is such a big field going to waste."

Back in 2017, Crewe Clean Team volunteers came to the site and filled more than a dozen bags of rubbish that has been dumped on the site since the club closed.

They posted on social media after the clean up: "As the land is privately owned, Cheshire East Council will not litter pick here as a matter of course.

"The land owners have no presence in Crewe and therefore, no way of regularly cleaning away the rubbish that may collect here."

The Guinness Partnership now own the land and have completely cleared it, including trees.

Overgrown grass across the old pitch has now been trimmed to a normal length, diggers have cleared debris lying across the site along with all of the hedges.

You can view our article from last week about the development work [L] https://crewe.nub.news/n/crewe-housing-development-at-former-football-pitch-begins [L+] here.