Clay Lane Club or "The Explorer"as it became known in its later days, was built with money and donations raised by the local community.
The land, which had previously been used on a temporary basis for some shops, had been put aside for some sort of club or community building and it became a thriving institution.
Weekends you could find people from all over, and not just Doncaster, quing to get in. It had many of the top acts on the club scene and its most famous visitor was the legendary Oliver Reed. David Copperfield (and not the magician) was not only a visitor, but was born and bred on Clay Lane.
I am not wholly sure of the history of the club and would welcome any articles or items of history so that I can update this page.
In its last years, visitors dropped off, there were, I am told problems on the committee and the club was first taken over by the brewery and later by a private party. Despite attempts to restore its former glory the club closed and over the last two to three years has been subjected to arson attacks and vandalism and is a sorry reminder of a once great past.
A planning application was made to demolish the club, re-site the Play Area, which sits behind it, to the front and build a number of homes on the site. The Partnership had agreed to this going forward on the provision that the Play Area received first priority in being re sited, we did not want the current one removed the club knocked down and then nothing happening. For some reason this development never went ahead and the latest I know is that it got stopped somewhere by DMBC, but I await an update to that.
