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'We've got a foot sticking out of the ceiling': Tales from Stoke's iconic nightclub

Lee BottomleyHanley
Eddie Skelson Six men and two women are looking at the camera and smiling. There is a red wall behind them with images on it and a sign that reads, "EXIT".Eddie Skelson
The Place management team in the late 90s - Skelson is at the back, third from right

Eddie Skelson used to manage an iconic nightclub and remembers the time one of his security team radioed to say there was something he needed to see urgently.

"Ed, we've got a foot sticking out of the ceiling," recalled the 59-year-old, who, at the time, thought it was a wind-up.

But it turned out there really was a human body part poking through into the cocktail bar at The Place, as a teenager had tried to get in through an air-conditioning shaft on the roof and got stuck.

People always tried to sneak in, he said, not normally because they did not want to pay, more often because they were drunk or had been barred.

In this case, the teen's 18-year-old girlfriend had got into the Stoke-on-Trent club, but he had been turned away as he was underage.

A man with short grey hair, and a beard and moustache, smiles at the camera. He is wearing a black jacket and top
Eddie Skelson was a manager of The Place, Hanley from the late 1990s into the 2000s

"We hauled him out; we had to get the cops round because he was going to pay for that - it comes off my bottom line," said the former licensee of the damage to the venue.

When it opened in 1963, The Place in Hanley was claimed to be the UK's first discotheque, and a plaque to that effect sits opposite where it used to stand.

Skelson began working the late management shift at the club in the late nineties, having initially worked on the doors, and was also in charge of marketing.

He said there were "plenty" of lows running the venue but also "so many good times".

Eddie Skelson A green badge, showing an image of a man's face, and the words, "City of Stoke-on-Trent door supervisor".Eddie Skelson
Skelson's security identity badge in the 1990s

He originally worked on pub doors, "which were rough and could be quite nasty", before moving to nightclubs.

Skelson picked up a number of injuries along the way and said to this day he still finds himself subconsciously looking for changes in people's body language and will not sit with his back to an entrance.

Having moved into club management, he said they wanted to change the image of "bouncers" to door staff who could de-escalate a situation and encourage customers to come back the following week, as that was good for drink sales.

"We needed confident people, but we didn't need people, who, at the first sign of someone being a bit lairy, would start breaking their fists out," he said.

A blue-coloured plaque on a building reads: "UK's first discotheque. The Place, 1963, stood opposite here. A labrynth of rooms. Thousands of members. The Basement DJ Trevor M, Soul and Jazz-Funk."
The Place in Hanley was a destination venue for decades

When he joined, The Place was not doing well -"200 people on a Friday night" - so they had to find DJs who could build the club back up, and "we did that."

And it was a team effort to make that change - from management to bar and door staff "who weren't feared but respected".

Reflecting on an era when Hanley was a clubbing destination, he recalled standing on a balcony in the venue, overlooking the crowd.

"I was very proud that we could look down and see all those hundreds of people having a great time, and that, for me, is the best thing about that time."

More than 50 years after it first opened, The Place was eventually demolished in 2015, and in early 2026, plans were submitted to build flats on the Bryan Street site.

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