Up the Youth Club

Emma Warren maps the shifting story of youth clubs in the UK and Northern Ireland, from factory workers in Victorian Boys’ and Girls’ clubs to renegade self-emancipatory spaces in the 1970s and the music-generating youth clubs of more recent decades. With a mixed lineage in church evangelism, the patronage of the upper classes, grassroots’ DIY, and erratic state funding, the youth club has had a huge, yet almost invisible, effect on music, sport, culture and society. Arguing that we cannot advocate for what we do not understand, Warren positions youth clubs as a kind of engine room, and why their dwindling numbers, largely due to austerity and funding cuts, is of serious concern for us all. With this impassioned history, Warren invites us to pick up the torch and play an active part in protecting and re-igniting this vital part of UK society.