The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Southport, Merseyside*

Southport, Merseyside Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• The Outdoor Swimming pool (Oh no, sorry, Sefton Council have demolished it). Birkdale Town Hall (Oh no, sorry, Sefton Council have demolished it). The old railway station (Oops, demolished). The art-deco Moulin Rouge in Ainsdale (You know the score by now...) Better not mention the Arts Centre building or no doubt it won't be there next week.
• southport crem the bin for the old fossil,s that drive micra,s
• The old bank. Now a pub.
• Ocean Plaza ruin, it sure makes a micky out of the council!
• The Old Bank
• my house its nice n warm oh yea n bliss! oh n the fire stations a good one to have around i guess.
• Waverlys Bar, the architecture is splendid if viewed from the inside with a few pints
• I was wrong. There is ONE good building in the town - that new College on the KGV site - the "Millenium Centre"? It must've been designed by a scouser feeling sorry for the locals. Was it Ellis Williams Associates (of Liverpool) I believe!
• Not applicable. Southport has Victorian Architecture, not maitained since the erstwhile queen vic was on the throne, occupied by scouse-hating sandgrounders whose attitudes wouldn't have shamed Victorian society. Luckily pleasant architecture abounds just 20 miles down the coast.
• The station. It's the quickest way out of this hell-hole.
• casablanca, lookz cool.
• The Bold Arms
• Brasserie Bonheur, formerly a banking house, is beautiful. Outstandng decor.
• No doubt about it, the old hospital
• The Arts Center: The place to be if you like the theatre
• The YMCA, is great for playing Basketball on a Sunday night.

Demolish It Now Building

• the cinima its an eye saw
• the bliss!talk about a dive wiv power-trippin bouncers!
• Smack head central formerly known as Royal Terrace
• The golden goose / floral hall / southport theatre complex - woeful architecture! The Pavilion Buildings above the old House of Holland. I went for an interview there once in 1986 and this guy said "have you got a calculator?" and I said "yes" and offered it to him, and he said "I just wanted to know". Loony?
• Southport generally - its absolutely cak.
• The whole sea-front, its crap!
• Christ the King RC High on Stamford Road. Enema spot if there ever was one.
• The fair
• the train station cos it smells funny!
• All of it. Do the world a favour. Nuke the bloody lot.
• the bingo, keep the old peole at bay.
• In response to the section under the above I couldn't help notice that you would like to see Southport fair demolished; not only that but demolished with all the SCOUSERS in. I being a born and bred Liverpool citizen am most digusted by your comment, although its supposed to be a fun thing I can take a joke as well as the next person until someone thinks they have the right to dicriminate were I come from. I am erging you to change this at once because how would you like us here in Liverpool to wish to demolish a building with you stuck up knobheads from Southport in. Not nice is it when people discriminate against you when they don't even know you. If this is not altered you leave me no option but to take this further.
• McDonalds, so that gangs of 13 year olds carn't hang around it, thinking there hard
• The gas tower
• The Palace Cinema.
• The fountain on Lord Street has been demolished - now we've just got a building site instead
• B & M Bargains - lookes an eyesore on the beautiful Lord Street
• Kingswood School, Kingsway and the Tesco

The Best Things

• the atmosphere and the scousers i love em all!!!!!!
• Great music scene, clubs are ok.
• Most of the locals won't live as long as me, although the way they drive at pedestrians I might be wrong (don't OAPs have to have an eye test before being allowed to drive a ton-weight car?).
• It's full of Scousers, and the stupid locals oor "sandgrounders" hate us! It's in Merseyside! Ha!! It's run by Labour politicians from Bootle ha! ha! ha!! I only worked there from 1979 to 1985.
• Lord Street in summer, its lovely.
• People like GOMEZ and Zadziuk.
• You have a choice about whether or not you spend any time here.
• the pier, the sea wall, the skate spots,
• It is probably the easiest place on earth to pull a girl/s!!!
• THE SEVENTIES NIGHT IN WAVERLEYS BAR EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT.THE CHEESEY DJ KEV LINDEN IS UNBELIEVABLE!
• A night out at any venue with music supplied by Fox Island Entertainments. Excellent!!
• It's like a clean version of Blackpool.
• Lord Street, any season.
• The Local Radio Station - 107.9 Dune fm, It's realy Cool! The music festival is at Pontins - there is no Butlins in Southport!!!
• The new bars (Flava, Glasshouse, QPQ etc)
• Some of the students coming in the summers. I spent five marvellous summers in Southport. And Pete Martin, all the Emmet's family
• It has'nt got any good points apart from the fact that ist close to Liverpool!!!!!!
• The Buses: cheap,clean and on time , unlike the ones in Dundee ! Ouch
• The friendly people, the basketball team
• Lots of small friendly Hotels (Bed & Breakfasts) cheap taxis.We had a great time at the Grand National. THANKS SOUTHPORT
• There is a Vineyard church at Meols Cop school.
• There is one major major excellent thing about Southport (apart from Alan Hansen living there), and that is the Southport Dance Music Weekenders, which are at Butlins on the seafront and happen every 6 months (or so). The last one (Nov 3,4,5) was bloody excellent. Be there.
• Best Thing about Southport is the good atmosphere when the sun is shining in Summer and it's packed with day-trippers.

The Worst Things

• On hot sunny days the flashers hanging around hesketh park .Exposing themselves to women and children.
• the way the woolybacks talk!! its on the verge of mancunian and dosnt half go through me!and the way they hate scousers....well'scousers bring at least 50% of the tourism, liverpool has the two football teams u more than likely support, u take off thier fasions, even if it is 3 yrs later!!!and once u hit 16, realise uve already been goin the shithole (sorry-bliss!)since u were 8 u will more than likely venture to cream,051 etc amoungst the scousers!!also,i hate the way the wools dis ppl from formby...its not our fault we live there!!
• Smackheads Rockers Smellys
• The weekend clubbers who feel they have something to prove other than their age.
• The fairground. It's called "Pleasureland", an oxymoron if ever there was one! The people: crass, snobbish, arrogant, intransigent, xenophobic (as in they hate anyone not from Southport for four generations), anachronistic, reactionary, pro-fascist bigots. (And that's the good ones).
• The local drivers are the worst in Christendom. The alleyways running parallel with, but behind, the "Victorian Splendour" (sic) of Lord Street. (Should be "Good Lord!" Street). I had to work there from 1979 to 1985.
• Fashion in Southport has not moved beyond 1995. Oh yeah and the accent, its so annoying, you don't know whether to speak like Fred Eliot or Jimmy Tarbuck!
• The fact that most Southporters think they are so above scousers, when in fact half of them either come from Liverpool, or their parents do. I would just like to remind people that if it wasn't for that city Southport would never have been built, plonked out on some poxy sand dune.
• Jumped up native residents of scarisbrick, They will not tolerate anybody who in their eyes is an interloper. They seem to think that anybody who moves to the area is taking something from them. They are so rude it is sickening Cottagers hanging around the toilets in the parks or are they scarisbrick men on tour?
• People form southport going on about scouser,s SNOBS People from southport have no manners whatsoever Stupid kids vandalising everthing in their path ie parks bus shelters ect
• All of it.
• OLD PEOPLE, busted up winding pavments (shit for skating)
• Gangs of little plastic scallies in there tracksuits and rockports
• Southport is known as Gods waiting room .. It's full of Oap,s waiting to "meet thy maker" ..Praise the lord and pass the tambourine
• The council seem to have forgotten that to make a town exciting it needs young people here. All the young people leave and go elsewhere, where there's pubs and clubs.
• The Palace Cinema.
• People lowering the cred of the top bars by wearing suits or slacks with Top Man shirts. Stick to the golf clubs, lads!! The imagined rivalry between Southport and Liverpool. Im from Southport and think scousers are the friendliest and liveliest people on earth.
• All that froggies spending summers there, all that people from Valencia and Madrid, and the Germans, Austrians and similar. Too many hooligans and scousers on Southport nights.
• The large amount of Old people and the scousers who like to migrate in large herds wearing Kappa and acting hard !? Why can't they f*ck off back to the sh*t heap they crawled out of.
• the basketball team needs a sponsor
• No multi screen cinema (yet)
• The worst thing about Southport is the residents trying to out-do each other "Keeping up with the Jones'". As they say in Liverpool, "New car in the drive, no meat on the table!!"
• Worst Thing is the snobbery of the natives - for example the claim that they have nothing in common with Liverpool (apart from hundreds of thousands of visitors from there every year) and should be in a different county.

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

In most cases, the information in each section has been submitted by more than one contributor (the credits at the bottom of the page list some, but not all, of the contributors) and some of it dates back to the 1970s.

We make no claims as to the accuracy of the information in the Guide - our only purpose is to provide a forum for users to share their knowledge and opinions. So please keep a large bag of salt handy and be prepared to read between the lines!

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Credits

Last updated: 2008-05-15