Crap towns

[kevo]

Morton Valence are playing in Southend today, a place I consider the most hideous place I have ever visited.

I went there once on a Saturday. It is the archetypal type of dump where you feel out of place if you a) don't wear sportswear b) don't speak with a fake cockney accent c) don't act like a fucking macho lager tosser and d) don't have a 15-year-old girlfriend pushing a pram.

We wondered along the main street, the centrepiece of which was a rusting iron railway bridge, trying to find somewhere to eat among all the 'everything for a pound' shops. The only place we could find was a filthy chippy, which seemed to attract the locals in droves even though it served the most disgusting chips I have ever tasted.

The town's main attraction is, of course, having the longest pier in the world, so we went down to the seafront, past hundreds of amusement arcades, to have a look. In reality it is just this ugly wood and iron structure with nothing on it that stretches out into the sea for no particular reason. We left at tea time. God knows what the place is like after dark or, for that matter, at closing time.

Runners up in my personal crap towns poll would probably be Cleethorpes, for many of the same reasons as Sarfend, Gillingham and Mansfield (tho not so much for the town itself but for its strange, psychopathic drunken inhabitants).

What is the worst town you've been to?

[The Other Half]

It's not a town, but North Woolwich is pretty terrifying. Me and Foxy once did a Docklands walk that ended up there. It felt like we'd wandered into a Mad Max movie. It wasn't that the town centre was any uglier than other grim spots in London, but there was a real air of menace. It made the roughest part of Finsbury Park seem like Hampstead. We couldn't leave fast enough.

[Svejk]

I was in Cleethorpes on Thursday. It was no where near as bad as I expected. It has the cheapest arcades ever too!

[Lettuce Spray]

It's not a town, but North Woolwich is pretty terrifying. Me and Foxy once did a Docklands walk that ended up there. It felt like we'd wandered into a Mad Max movie. It wasn't that the town centre was any uglier than other grim spots in London, but there was a real air of menace. It made the roughest part of Finsbury Park seem like Hampsead. We couldn't leave fast enough.

My eyes! I'd forgotten how bad it was. He really does speak the truth. I've only had the feeling I had there on one other occasion in my life, and that was when we thought we'd go sight-seeing in Harlem, and realised that there were cars slowing down next to us as we walked down the road.

[Lancashire Fusileer]

Northampton was wank when I went
I grew up & lived in two relatively unaffluent areas; Felling and Accrington, so I quite like a spiky feel to a place. Having said that I wouldn't wish a night in Burton on Trent on anyone. I had to work there, and jeseus, the place is stocked with mad angry fuckers... Maybe its the fumes from the brewery... Bizarrely I once stayed in a guest house that had run out of wallpaper mid-room, and then just carried on in another style. Quite mind blowing...

Other crapholes I have experienced are
Dollar
Widnes
Warrington
Little Lever
Wigan (a horrific night out with men who possessed necks the width of a lorry tyre)
Dewsbury
Newtown
Oldham
Bangor
Peterborough
Swindon
Bedford
Milton Keynes (tho'I quite like it in a shit is crap kinda way)


and all of Surrey

[MonkeyHanger]

I most definitely second Southend. Horrendous place. I went to watch Pools there once with a group of mates and within 20 minutes we'd be started on by the wannabe Cockney inhabitants, only for the biggest mouth amongst them to start on the wrong Hartlepool lad, resulting in him picking up a liquid diet for the next few months.

I personally think Middlesbrough is a crap, crap town. It has a few good shops and one half decent nightclub but is it wrong to expect so much more from such a large town? When someone from South Belfast (a Uni mate) describes a place as 'Sarajevo like' then you know you're in trouble, such an air of menace to the place.

[Martin Our Pravda]

Wolverhampton is widely thought of as being a crap town, but I actualy didn't mind having a look around before the football earlier this year. It seems to have a gothic sort of feel to it which I found quite interesting.
Northampton isn't too bad either, just a bit run down. It has 2 pretty good music venues though - shame it has fuck all bands.

I thought Stoke seemed pretty dire, well the part I briefly saw, again before the football this season. But I think a lot of these crap towns are quite interesting despite being very dull. A lot of them have quite cool hidden away things.

[mick wright]

I was in Cleethorpes on Thursday. It was no where near as bad as I expected. It has the cheapest arcades ever too!

Go on a sunday and do some people watching...

[Revol_T]

Middlesbrough isn't as bad as a lot people make it out to be, and there's much more to do round here than there is in Durham, Hartlepool or Sunderland, but the most depressing thing about Teesside as a whole -- and I think it extends to Hartlepool as well (the town centre at least) -- is the propensity for that macho bullshit violence that kevo mentions. It's like fucking Fight Club in some of these places.

The local papers round here have been dominated by stories about "hard men" and gangsters fighting and killing each other recently. Two examples from this week alone that have to be read to be believed:

A MURDER defendant abused cocaine and steroids and was told by his alleged victim: “You won’t be the hardest while I’m alive,” a jury was told. David Reed, 29, is accused of stabbing Peter Hoe to death after developing a fixation on fighting him and rivalling him as a local “strongman”.

Teesside Crown Court heard from Zara Durrant, who was David ‘Diddy’ Reed’s girlfriend for ten months about three years ago. About 18 months before Mr Hoe’s death, she said David Reed put on a video of Mr Hoe training in his house, punching punch bags.

“He’d been to Peter’s wanting to have a fight with him. He’d come back with the video. Peter had given him it.” David told her Mr Hoe had said, “You are hard,” but that David should respect him, and that David would not be the hardest person around Eston while he was alive, she added.

Fight To The Death

THE scene Lee Hannan walked into - which led to his demise - sounded pathetic in every sense of the word. A long-awaited street fight arranged to decide “who’s the bigger man”. One combatant persuaded to take part in the scrap for fear of being called a “fanny”. Then, according to one witness, Shaun Martin, topless on a winter’s night, bouncing up and down, dropping his trousers and “doing a moon” at his opponent...

Needless to say, there are tossers like this everywhere nowadays, but I think the old uber-masculine north east stereotype doesn't help things up here. The fact that one of these guys was nicknamed Shaun "Wellard" Martin sums up the mentality of these people.

[MonkeyHanger]

Middlesbrough isn't as bad as a lot people make it out to be, and there's much more to do round here than there is in Durham, Hartlepool or Sunderland, but the most depressing thing about Teesside as a whole -- and I think it extends to Hartlepool as well (the town centre at least) -- is the propensity for that macho bullshit violence that kevo mentions. It's like fucking Fight Club in some of these places.

You'd expect there to be though, considering the size of Boro to Hartlepool! Even then, what has Middlesbrough got that we haven't? Setting foot into places like Grangetown and South Bank is like stepping back in time; Hartlepool has its rough areas but nothing compared to those. I agree with the fight club mentality, and its not just the usual suspects such as the drunken meatheads who cause problems, but all and sundry. The place with the most reported incidents of trouble last year in Hartlepool wasn't some of the rougher establishments but the local indie nightclub. Craziness.

[Revol_T]

I prefer Middlesbrough over Stockton, Hartlepool and Sunderland for having a bigger town centre with wider streets, bigger buildings and greater open spaces. It's just the grim industrial backdrop that lets it down. It has a decent range of shops, not spectacular. Decent alt. club nights come and go, but there always seem to be better ones for more discerning tastes in Middlesbrough than anywhere you would find in, say, Sunderland (where I lived for a few years) usually in bars like the Purple Onion, the Cornerhouse or the new place, the Basement. I agree though about Grangetown, Eston, Southbank etc. They've been ravaged by industrial decline and neglect in the last 30 years or so, and seeing how fucked up they are now makes you wonder if they can ever recover.

The place with the most reported incidents of trouble last year in Hartlepool wasn't some of the rougher establishments but the local indie nightclub. Craziness.

Yep. Time before last I was in Hartlepool, waiting for my bus home, I witnessed a mass brawl spilling out of that club next door to Wilkinsons on Stockton Street (?) in the town centre. They ended up actually fighting in the road, as cars swerved out of the way. Oh dear!

[MonkeyHanger]

I prefer Middlesbrough over Stockton, Hartlepool and Sunderland for having a bigger town centre with wider streets, bigger buildings and greater open spaces. It's just the grim industrial backdrop that lets it down. It has a decent range of shops, not spectacular. Decent alt. club nights come and go, but there always seem to be better ones for more discerning tastes in Middlesbrough than anywhere you would find in, say, Sunderland (where I lived for a few years) usually in bars like the Purple Onion, the Cornerhouse or the new place, the Basement. I agree though about Grangetown, Eston, Southbank etc. They've been ravaged by industrial decline and neglect in the last 30 years or so, and seeing how fucked up they are now makes you wonder if they can ever recover.

The place with the most reported incidents of trouble last year in Hartlepool wasn't some of the rougher establishments but the local indie nightclub. Craziness.

Yep. Time before last I was in Hartlepool, waiting for my bus home, I witnessed a mass brawl spilling out of that club next door to Wilkinsons on Stockton Street (?) in the town centre. They ended up actually fighting in the road, as cars swerved out of the way. Oh dear!

The very place I mentioned, Jax Bar! The only indie nightclub in Hartlepool and a place were you're guaranteed to see at least three fights a night. A lad I went to school with has just been allowed home from hospital after six months in hospital recovering from a fractured skull he suffered from fighting outside there. He was in a coma for two of those months. We tend to go to The Empire in Boro for a change, but even the clientele in there is changing to a more chavvy one.

[m1573r_g4v]

cleethorpes is my hometown, it's improving here at a nice rate, five or so years ago i hated the fucking dump.

svejk... fuck buttons? thought i recognised you, you dance funny.

[Svejk]

cleethorpes is my hometown, it's improving here at a nice rate, five or so years ago i hated the fucking dump.

svejk... fuck buttons? thought i recognised you, you dance funny.

were you there? why didn't you say hi dude! the promoter is my best friend!

[Lieutenant Woodpigeon]

Alness, Newton-le-Willows and Glasgow.