Events tagged with "Subway City"
Bill Gavan
Bill Gavan played a pivotal role in the development of the gay scene in Wolverhampton and later revolutionised gay clubbing in Birmingham when he opened Subway City. He has also been instrumental in building links between the gay community and the po...
Nightingale Essex House
The Nightingale decided it wanted to expand, but the Thorp Street site was hemmed in by the Hippodrome Theatre who had plans to expand themselves. The club decided to sell the Thorp Street venue to the theatre and began the hunt for new premises. The...
The Dorchester
Gavans at the Dorchester was a large nightclub in Wolverhampton, the largest in Europe at the time. It was gay on Saturday nights initially. Owned by Bill Gavan who later went on to open Subway City. The club had a very large dance area on the ground...
The Jug
The Jug was owned and managed by the charismatic and well known Laurie Williams. Laurie named his club The Jug being an acronym of ‘Just Us Guys’, later changed to ‘Just Us Gays’. Originally situated on Albert Street and later on Water Street, the Ju...
Twiggy
Twiggy has worked in clubs for over 25 years and has built up a reputation as one of Britain's top club hosts. He currently works at DV8 in Birmingham and at various clubs throughout the UK. At the height of the dance boom in the 90s he worked for th...
Memories tagged with "Subway City"
Donations to gay causes
“Although my club (Subway City) is no longer a gay club, it’s frequented by straight people, I still use all the money we raise for charity, about £60K a year, to gay charities (except Children in Need) and the money I make is donated to the politica...
Helping to organise the first Pride 1996
Trevor joined the Birmingham Pride committee (The Triangle Committee) in November 1996, which was set up to organise the first Pride in May 1997. Trevor was the Secretary; there were about ten people involved on the executive committee and they broug...
Opening Subway City
For the past fifteen years Bill has been running Subway City. “Laurie Williams, who was an icon in Birmingham, and one of the founders of the Nightingale and a very clever and highly camp man, had a club called The Jug Club, which is now the club I o...
Pubs/Clubs at the time - 1992
"At that time a lot of pubs were still knock on the door. You could walk into Partners. The Jester was up Holloway Head, and is one of the oldest gay pubs in Birmingham; I think it's renamed now. There's a police station above it and it's opposite...
The Water Garden stank
Steve remembers The Jug during the late 1980s. This was a club that was located in the same building that Subway City is now, on Livery Street. Two older gay men, Laurie Williams and his partner Lionel ran it and also lived above the club with their ...