The Club. 1994 Channel 4 Documentary.

craigstardis1976

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Hi Everyone!

I have uploaded a copy of the 1994 Cutting Edge series from Channel 4 called "The Club." It was made with the willing co-operation of Norwood Golf Club in the suburbs of North London and was viewed and approved by them prior to transmission. If anyone has seen this or seen it before and wants to resee it, here is the link:

I have a few questions about it, more to do with how club golf was back in the day, if anyone would care to have a go at answering them or just any comments in general as I love learning about social history.

1. Is this a fair reflection of how many men acted at suburban golf clubs in this time period? The Membership Director: Allan Sanders claims there is a diverse range of members from "leaders of multi-national companies to those in very humble positions" - that may or may not be the case. But what qualities do you think they were looking for could identify in prospective members being "Suitable" for the club?

2. Was the attitude towards women golfers fairly typical of the time period?

3. For a club that claims to have prominent members...some of their dress sense (this of course the era of Pringle, Wolsey) looks like a mix of clothing from anywhere between the 60s and 80s - or am I misreading that?

4. While understanding golf equipment was not as sophisticated as it is now, at what claims to be a comfortable well off club, why are so many of the members using clubs, bags and so on that look decade old even then? Or was that just the way it was?

5. I have lots of golf instruction books from the 1960s and 1970s and think I have more of an old school golf swing but some of the swings on display here for people who by then would have played for ten, twenty maybe even thirty years all seem very different indeed - was that the case years ago among club golfers?

6. The Gentleman who is being called out...the amazing thing is he (nor seemingly anyone in the room)_actually questions the conduct and behavior of the members holding the meeting. Before you accuse anyone of "conduct unbecoming of a gentlemen) have you at least not to be able to demonstrate (at least in manner) and preferably by example, that you hold that standard, yourself.

7. I get the impression people thought of themselves as either lucky to be there, tolerated or they owned the place? Did no-one at this time say "You know if we go on like this we are just going to run out of people?

Finally, it seems such a shame to me that although I have gone on to achieve a lot in life, members here in 1994 are so concerned with gatekeeping and only wanting "their sort" even to play golf. Sadly, I would have been one of the teenagers at the time refused admission because I was not the "right sort."

What do you all think?

Cheers
 
Northwood* Golf Club. It's less than 10 minutes drive from where I live, I've played there two or three times. It is known for being slightly stuck up I think, although I didn't have any problems the times I was there. Of course this would have been within the last 7 years, not in the 90s.

Your points 4 & 5 - no different to now surely? Plenty of people use 10 or 20 year old clubs and have all kinds of unusual swings. That'll never change!
 
Some clubs were exactly like that and some still are.
My club had a local reputation for being in a similar vein for many years.
Fortunately the club has dragged itself into the present.
I used to be a driving instructor and my advertising headboard was always on my car.
Talking to one of the, shall we say, more experienced ladies one morning she told me that 20 years ago I wouldn't have been allowed to park in the car park with the headboard on and that no vans or sign-written cars would be either...
Fast forward to today and all manner of vehicles from Astons to Polos are welcomed..
 
I've never actually watched this all the way through before, watching it now, it's actually pretty entertaining. This old boy Preston Lockwood is a great character, big fan of him. 😄

Edit: Oh wow, turns out he was a famous actor! And died only two years after that documentary.
Preston Lockwood - Wikipedia https://share.google/fFuBPHh6657XEJYQR

Highlight quote from one of the board members "We have Doctor Shah, and plenty of other coloured members" 😳


Edit2: found this as well
It says the whole committee resigned after there was negative backlash to this documentary!
 
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I've never actually watched this all the way through before, watching it now, it's actually pretty entertaining. This old boy Preston Lockwood is a great character, big fan of him. 😄

Edit: Oh wow, turns out he was a famous actor! And died only two years after that documentary.
Preston Lockwood - Wikipedia https://share.google/fFuBPHh6657XEJYQR

Highlight quote from one of the board members "We have Doctor Shah, and plenty of other coloured members" 😳


Edit2: found this as well
It says the whole committee resigned after there was negative backlash to this documentary!

Remember watching it years ago and being shocked at that bit. 1950s attitudes still having around in the 90s.
 
"3. For a club that claims to have prominent members...some of their dress sense (this of course the era of Pringle, Wolsey) looks like a mix of clothing from anywhere between the 60s and 80s - or am I misreading that?"
I was surprised how colourful many of them were on the course.
They were mostly geezers 55-70 years of age - I would have expected to see very little variation from grey, navy and beige in those days.
Some of these guys may have smartened themselves up for the cameras.
I got no impression, apart from one lovely exception, that they were unusually dressed behind the times for 1994.

"4. While understanding golf equipment was not as sophisticated as it is now, at what claims to be a comfortable well off club, why are so many of the members using clubs, bags and so on that look decade old even then? Or was that just the way it was?"
I saw most had embraced metal woods. Very modern and up-to-date for old geezers in 1994. Ping Eye 2 woods and some persimmons were still very popular in 1994.
Those 1980s vinyl bags were very durable. No need to stop using them if they still do the job.
I have a Wilson bag I bought brand new in 1988. Still very solid and usable.
 
That is a hard watch and highlights everything that was wrong with club golf and sadly in some cases still is thankfully that’s now the minority.

I can relate to so many of those things from that era having been a 2nd class citizen as a junior not allowed in certain areas of the club, only allowed on practice
Area at certain times. Was always dragged to AGM by my dad as my mum worked evenings but had to sit in the stud bar and listen as not allowed in main bar area and they were exactly like that, ladies not allowed a vote, load of people thinking they were better than others because of their jobs and being committee members mean they were right regardless, it was bloody awful.

Glad to see the games moving forward.
 
That is a hard watch and highlights everything that was wrong with club golf and sadly in some cases still is thankfully that’s now the minority.

I can relate to so many of those things from that era having been a 2nd class citizen as a junior not allowed in certain areas of the club, only allowed on practice
Area at certain times. Was always dragged to AGM by my dad as my mum worked evenings but had to sit in the stud bar and listen as not allowed in main bar area and they were exactly like that, ladies not allowed a vote, load of people thinking they were better than others because of their jobs and being committee members mean they were right regardless, it was bloody awful.

Glad to see the games moving forward.

Why do you think it was like that? And clearly it was. I would not have een got to darken he doorstep at a club like this in 1994.
 
I would think that the fact that it’s a Golf documentary and it’s made by Channel 4 gives it all away..

Channel 4 is basically The Guardian, so you can imagine what it’s going to be going for in its choice of who and what to include in its expose of a ‘typical golf club and it’s members’ 🤪
 
Why do you think it was like that? And clearly it was. I would not have een got to darken he doorstep at a club like this in 1994.
I’ve no idea I was a 14 year old kid just dragged along at that age like every teenager still Does I thought every adult was a bit of a knob.

I think it was just a societal hangover that golf was a game for then upper middle class and the rest of us were lucky to be there. Thankfully golf and the world has moved on.
 
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Does nobody think Channel 4 and those who came up with the idea, and the editors of it, did not have an ‘angle’ that informed which people to seek out etc?

Just like Love Island and Big Brother and those chosen to be characters on those shows, isn’t a genuine snapshot of our society — those in TV always have an angle 🙄
 
I found nothing surprising with regards to the snobbishness, misogyny and racism depicted from a 1994 golf club. I found that type of thing abominable at the time.
But it depended on the type of club and also the geographical place at the time.
I played at Barnsley municipal in 1971 and it was nothing like that. Western Park municipal in Leicester later 1970s was also nothing like that.
Right across the UK, the type of golf club depicted in the documentary was not very typical. But in the southeast of England it was not unusual. Many clubs actually aspired to be as snobbish as possible. In that, it was not an inaccurate depiction.

I came to the conclusion, well before 1994, that I loved golf, but actively disliked many golf clubs.
I felt that there was little need for it to be different from my football club - a changing room and a bar - and a big field for the sport.

I remember the media reporting and discussions after this was shown on telly. The club depicted had a bit of a wake-up. Other clubs realised that such snobbishness was not a good thing.
A little ripple of social attitudes changing across these types of clubs was a welcome thing.
Whether this was Channel-4's agenda, I can not say for sure. But the documentary did no harm. It may have caused a much-needed change in attitudes in some places.
 
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I was shocked that the club signed off on it. 😁
I saw it a few years ago and just assumed it was a standard media hatchet job, seeking out the worst behaviour they could find.

I never realised the club signed it off. The fact that it did just goes to show that the board members were living in their own little bubble and genuinely believed the way they behaved was "how things should be".
 
I saw it a few years ago and just assumed it was a standard media hatchet job, seeking out the worst behaviour they could find.

I never realised the club signed it off. The fact that it did just goes to show that the board members were living in their own little bubble and genuinely believed the way they behaved was "how things should be".
Yup.
Dismissing it as a ch4/guardian stitch up rather ignores the fact that all the producers appear to have done is hand over a nice length of rope.

My own impression (anecdata alert) is that this is a generational thing. One of my mates was a member at my club many years ago and had a tale similar to Imurg's about tradesmen having to park 'round the back.
Nowadays, we'll take anyone's money (including my own) and, to my eyes at least, are a welcoming and inclusive setup. But there are shadows of the past still flitting about, they're just gradually reducing in number.
 
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