“It’s the best thing I ever did” – 85-year-old looks back on the summer camps at Salford Lads Club

85-year-old Ronnie Critchlow said that spending his time at Salford Lads Club “was the best thing (he) ever did.”

Ronnie became a member of Salford Lads Club 72 years ago when he was 13, making him one of the oldest surviving members of the club.

Every year, starting from 1952, Ronnie would look forward to the club’s summer camp in Aberystwyth. Ronnie would take his family to the club’s camp in Wales where the boys and men of the club would play games and learn “discipline”, according to Ronnie’s daughter, Beverley Critchlow (61).

“They had quite specific set routines, it was quite regimented for them because a lot of the camp was about making them good citizens and making them disciplined.

“Those times at the camp were all he waited for, you know when you’re working class, working on the docks and playing football with those guys, they became your life.

“You’re in the football team, you’re in the Salford Lads Club and you went to work. Your only fun and recreation left was when you met up with those lads.”

Ronnie took his little girl, Beverley, from the age of three to the summer camps where she and her sister became “very well known around the campsite.”

However, Beverley was only allowed on the camp at certain times as girls, in those days, were strictly forbidden from joining the club.

Despite this strict rule, Beverley didn’t mind sneaking her six-year-old self onto the annual camp photo in 1968.

Pictured below is Beverley perched on the left-hand side of the camp photo.

“There was a point where they kind of went ‘Oh god! Bev’s sat on the picture shall we retake it?’

“But I think they thought ‘Oh it’s just Bev, she looks like a boy anyway so let’s just let it roll’,” said Beverley.

“If you look at the lad sitting next to me he’s kind of pulled away from me as if to say, I’m not sitting next to a GIRL!”

When the lads would visit the camp in May it would always seem “sunny and glorious”. Beverley said her dad “just loved” the camp and the chance to get some fresh air away from the city.

“They had sports tournaments against Aberystwyth, so the lads of Aberystwyth would play football and other games against Salford lads and there would be trophies to win.

“That’s why they met and became friends with so many people in Aberystwyth. I mean, Salford lads and Aberystwyth are synonymous.”

Ronnie loved the camps and the Welsh community so much that he even moved to Aberystwyth in 1981 and still lives there now.

Ronnie took over the Salford Lads Club football team as manager in the early 1960s and had a successful run.

“They were good lads, one year, we won four trophies,” Ronnie added.

During his time at the lads club, Ronnie also met a few famous faces who were members. “At that time when I was in the club, there were four professional footballers in that club,” said Ronnie.

“There was Brian Doyle who played for Stoke City, Albert McPherson who played for Walsall, Eddie Colman one of the Busby Babes who died in Munich (1958) and Steve Fleet a Manchester City goalkeeper; he was the understudy for Bert Trautman.”

He still visits the club every year to meet his old friends, however, there is only a few of his time left now.

“There’s maybe five or six of them left from that era, there’s not going to be that era and that memory left to a certain extent,” Beverley admitted.

When Ronnie has visited the club in recent years he’s got “a right welcome” according to Beverley.

Beverley said: “He goes every year and he meets up with a couple of others and he’ll have a tour and a coffee and talk about old times and they have a right good laugh.”

Ronnie’s last visit was in November of last year, where he met Henry Jones and George Brown, who were both members of the club alongside Ronnie.

Ronnie added: “Every time I’m in Salford I call in and put money in the box, make a donation, and have a cup of tea in the canteen.

“Nothing has changed, it was exactly the same when I was there 70 years ago.”