Lancashire nostalgia in 1976: Sex Pistols banned, inferno at football club and bra-less for arts sake

Controversial punk group the Sex Pistols have been shunned at music venues in Lancashire

Banned! Filthy branded punk rock band Sex Pistols shunned

Sex Pistols, the country’s most outrageous and depraved pop group, have been banned from appearing in Blackburn and Lancaster. And now Preston is about to be scrubbed as a venue on their first UK tour.

The group - leaders of the punk rock cult which is sweeping Britain - shocked millions of viewers when they produced the filthiest language ever heard on television.

Their Preston booking is at the Guild Hall Charter Theatre on December 10 and Preston Council entertainments officer Mr Vin Sumner, said: “I am going to get in touch with their promoter now. In view of what has happened there is no way I am accepting this booking.”

According to Mr Andrew Grimshaw, promoter of North West venue the Lodestar in Ribchester, the Sex Pistols could not get a venue in Blackburn.

They were shunned at Lancaster University too.

The Sex Pistols’ act has been labelled sick and filthy and this first UK tour follows performance bans in clubs and dance halls throughout the country.

In Preston they were top of the bill in their “Anarchy in the UK” tour package. Appearing with the Sex Pistols were The Damned, Johnny Thunder and the Heartbreakers (ex-New York Dolls) and The Clash.

Look back at a selection of pictures from 1976 here

Inferno sweeps football ground

Lancaster City Football Club was facing a financial crisis as police forensic experts probed the ruins of the 1,000-seater stand at their Giant Axe ground - destroyed in a fierce blaze.

The stand was destroyed in the fire at the council-owned ground. At the height of the blaze houses opposite the soccer stand were evacuated as the intense heat cracked windows and melted plastic guttering.

The blaze means a new financial crisis for the club - struggling on low gates.

As he inspected the damage, club chairman Mr Charles Capstick said: “This is the worst thing that could happen. The stand and ground are owned by the local council and I don’t know how it will be replaced.

“All clubs have their financial difficulties at the moment without problems of this kind.”

Four appliances went to the scene and firemen toiled for an hour to put out the blaze. They managed to save the clubhouse, changing rooms and the control point of the floodlighting.

Lancaster manager Mr Sean Gallagher had been with the Northern Premier League club at Mossley.

Women go bra-less for arts sake!

Big-bosomed Lancashire lassies taking part in a film biography of screen lover Rudolph Valentino have been told to leave their bras at home.

As the film extra girls gathered in Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom, they wriggled into their 20s style costumes and pulled their dressed tight across bare breasts.

For the flapper was a flat chested bird and film chiefs reckon the only way today’s well-endowed girls can measure up is by leaving off their bras and lacing dresses tightly across the chest.