Sheffield retro: Remembering Sheffield's cellar club which became the northern stronghold for music and nurtured four present day musical legends

Before its opening in 1960, Sheffield’s youth were fighting a largely losing battle against mainstream ballroom entertainment which was dominated by the foxtrot and the tango.

One of the only places to really dip their toe into the waters of late fifties teenage angst was the Gaumont Cinema in Barker’s Pool, which started Saturday morning teenage shows attracting audiences of up to 1,600.

Former draughtsman and entrepreneur, Terry Thornton, was the one who gave the teenage market its first real home of any standing in 1960 when he opened the cellar club, Club 60, in Shalesmoor.

Neil Anderson of Neil Anderson media said: “Shalesmoor’s subterranean Club 60 was probably as near as we got to the underground feel of Scouse-style rock’n’roll Mecca in the sixties – the Cavern Club. It was definitely Sheffield’s only cellar club of the era.”

Terry Thornton opened Club 60 believing it was ‘time to spice things up’ as Sheffield portrayed a ‘dark and dour’ image to the outside world following the second world war.

Sheffield was described at the time as a ‘rough, tough, working class city, slow to recover from the devastation of the Blitz and the aftermath of World War Two’.

Looking to change this view of the city, Terry opened Club 60 originally as a jazz-orientated venue, however, it swiftly changed to a beat music venue as the jazz-orientated club failed to make a significant impression.

"Dingy, dank and looking more like the kind of communal air raid shelter most people would rather forget,” is how Neil Anderson described Club 60 in its jazz days.

Although Terry preferred traditional and modern jazz music, he quickly realised that beat music was the way of the future – and so from then on, he introduced pop night and this is when Club 60 really became serious.

"We started by putting on modern jazz and for the first six months we had a very thin time,” said Terry. “But when Saturday night became pop night the people started coming and the club started to make money.”

Club 60 then quickly became the northern stronghold for happening music and this is when the venue began to nurture the talents of four musicians that have gone on to become legendary in the records of Sheffield music history.

These musicians were Joe Cocker, Dave Berry, Jimmy Crawford and Frank White.

Club 60 actually had no alcohol license and so only sold coffee and soft drinks.

In his next adventure, Terry Thornton’s love for hanging weird and wonderful objects around the venue was taken to the next level. He moved from Club 60, which could barely house 250 people, to a venue which could house a significantly higher 27,000 at its height.

This new venue was the Esquire club, which stood in the upper floors of the building which now is home to the legendary The Leadmill nightclub on Leadmill Road.