All of these Wiganites shouting, “Fuck off! Play some stompers!”

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The Lord’s Day Observance Society was at its angry height, and Wigan was in its sightlines. The society was an organisation with one objective: ensuring that the Sabbath was respected. They targeted places of entertainment from sporting venues to nightclubs, and lobbied them energetically to discourage Sunday opening. The society was losing the long game, but its members were sufficiently organised to lobby MPs, influence local councillors and picket clubs that were undermining Christianity. By 1974, the Casino was high on the hit list. Not only did it open in the small hours of Sunday, it crashed through the Sabbath like a stomping backbeat. James Anderton, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, met routinely with Harold Legerton, the society’s General Secretary, and Leslie Yates, their north-west organiser. All three shared the view that ‘only acts of necessity and mercy should be permitted’ on a Sunday. Anderton loathed all-nighters and had been a prominent figure in the small clique of Christian police officers that had forced the closure of the Twisted Wheel in 1971. Now he was in charge of a sprawling urban area that reached out from central Manchester to Wigan, and he had the final say on police policy and manpower deployment. Ironically his own daughter had attended the Blue Rooms, a rare soul club in her native Sale, but was forbidden from going to all-nighters; and of course the depraved Wigan Casino was out of bounds.