The Country of Liverpool

In my book, The Country of Liverpool, I was told about an amazing club that was in Liverpool during the 1980s, which had a link to D-day, 6^th June 1944. Mick Kinney, bass player with Phil Brady and the Ranchers, told me about the strangest club ever!

“One of our greatest and strangest experiences was playing on this boat at the docks in Liverpool. It was called the Club Ship Landfall, but we called it the Bad Ship Landfall. It was a large landing craft.

“This guy, Joe McGlory,” recalled Mick, “who owned a number of pubs in Liverpool, came up to us one night when we were playing for him. He says; ‘Hey Phil, you’re not going to believe this, but I’ve bought a boat and turned it into a club! It is down at the dock. I want you to play there, but it’s a late finish, so you can do your early gig and then come down and do the spot there about 12:30-2:30am. We did it for about three years. It was a bizarre place.

“The first time we saw it we went down after a gig and there was this huge boat in the dock with a gang plank that you walked over on. It’s an old army boat, one of those landing craft where the front comes down to unload whatever it was carrying. It had port holes down the side too. It was huge.”

D-Day Landing Craft

The Landfall was the LCT 7074 Landing Craft Tank and was used at D-Day in June 1944 at the Normandy Invasion. It landed tanks and troops on Gold beach on D-Day and continued to carry supplies across the English Channel over the next few months. She arrived in Liverpool in 1945 with a view to her being converted into an emergency repair ship for the Far East, but the Japanese surrender meant it wasn’t needed. It remained in Liverpool and was turned into a club, permanently based in Bramley-Moore Dock. 

“It had all been converted inside, so that when you went in around the middle, if you turned left, there was a disco, or to the right it was a club, and neither sound bled into the other club. It had a proper stage in each club and because it had double doors for each club, it was perfect. So it became the place to go for the lads after they’d finished playing. We played the Friday night and Saturday nights, so everyone knew Phil would be on, so they’d come down for a couple of pints. It was a bit rough and you’d get a couple of sconeheads, but it was good. That was around 1980.

The Guy Got Bottled

“There was one nasty incident when a guy got bottled. The other lad smashed a bottle and then cut the guy’s throat, so the blood was spurting out everywhere. He was losing a lot of blood and by the time the ambulance got there he was about to pass out. There was just this pool of blood by his foot where it had run down his body. Unreal. He lived though. We were playing when it happened and it was right in front of us. You had to be careful because there were some strange people who turned up there!

“By the time we finished playing, especially in the summer, the sun was already up and we were going home while the birds were singing, about 5 o’clock in the morning.”

Ford Cortina

“I remember coming out of the club one night with Phil, who had a Mark 3 Ford Cortina, bright yellow, vinyl roof and sports wheels. He said; ‘there’s a guy in my car and he’s trying to rob it’ but he didn’t see us. So I went over and opened the door. He was shocked, so I punched him and dragged him out of the car. Phil came over and started battering him with a mic stand! It was hilarious! The kid jumped up and started running away so Phil threw the mic stand at him and it hit him on the back!  So, he fell on the floor and rolled over, before jumping up and saying; ‘I’ll be back with my brothers’ etc. A strange experience!”

The Landing Craft Now

Who knew that the only surviving Landing Craft from D-Day on 6th June 1944 would end up in Liverpool? The craft was taken to Portsmouth and restored to its original state and is on display at the “D-Day Story” museum.

Get your copy of The Country of Liverpool: Nashville of The North now.