THE Plaza Teen Club at Manchester Road in Thornton Lodge featured many big name rock bands in the late 1960s.

Old mate and Examiner sports journalist Dave Lockwood saw them all for free – as a bouncer.

Titter ye not. Dave was a hunk in his younger days. Besides, as he points out, it was only a teen club.

“The ‘bouncers’ formed a horseshoe shape in front of the stage, linking arms to prevent anyone getting on,” he says. “And you were relieved every few minutes with someone stepping into your place so you could get a breather because, daft as it sounds, it did get quite frantic at times.”

It didn’t help when The Kinks played the venue and bass guitarist Peter Quaife repeatedly encouraged the girls to try and get onto the stage.

Dave was not impressed, particularly as he had burned his back while working stripped to the waist beneath a summer sun in the garden and was wearing a bri-nylon shirt. And who remembers them?

“My red raw back was testimony to the serious attempts that many of the girls made,” he says.

Dave’s memories add another strand to the reminiscences by readers about the 1960s and 1970s rock venues in Huddersfield.

The Searchers (Sweets For My Sweet and Needles And Pins) arrived at The Plaza early from London and went into the gym at the club.

Dave remembers: “They put boxing gloves on and started knocking nine bells out of each other before the gig started.

“They set up huge speakers on two formica-topped tables on either side of the stage. After the opening number they threatened to vibrate off into the crowd. I was directed to sit on stage for the duration of the concert holding the table legs to prevent one set of speakers going flying.”

Among other bands he recalls playing The Plaza were The Troggs (Wild Thing) and Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band.