Last gasp - Players factory demolished


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In the photo from Clifton, there is a chimney at players that I worked on the year before it closed down. Our company is literally a stones throw from the site and it makes me sad to think that I remember seeing the place built, worked on the site and now it's gone!!. What a waste of a good building. What's going to take it's place?. Any suggestions?. (Unless somebody already knows!!)

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On my visit to the area this week, I had a wander past the old Player's sites.   Paid a visit to St Peter's church.     I can remember when this was full of higgledy pig

Some things have survived. The Pheasant on Prospect Street!

Should make it law to have this painted on all UK pubs       

There's enough room to build a pub!! Heavens forbid. What about some social house's for the anti socials? With pub, primark, lidl's and of course a cash converters to help fence the mobile phones, plasma tv's and jewelry that requires upgrading every 3 weeks or so !!

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All I can remember from what My sis told me was "He was a small bloke" bothe Emerson and Ayerton were small, wish I could find the autographed post card,that would confirm, still looking

 

Rog

 

 

Neither of those, Rog. There seems to be some misunderstanding as to the date of the pic and the 'mid-seventies' quotes.

 

The car is clearly an Essex, so that makes this image at least 1980. The driver, if actually a factory driver, could be Andretti but more likely de Angelis. Might even have been our own old Nige though ..

 

I'm a bit surprised some didn't also pick up on the Mk3 Jag and the Mk 2 Granada estate in the car park :).

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The only thing is, as I remember, the car was driven round the factory on it's inauguration, and that would have been in 1972 !!

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1972/3 fits in with what I was thinking, My sis gave me the card about then, I know that because I had only just got married

 

Rog

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Emerson Fittipaldi won the world drivers championship in 1972 driving a JPS Lotus 72 chassis car, did he and his car visit the factory in 1972/73

 

Rog

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28 minutes ago, denshaw said:

Could have been two occasions when this happened?

Certainly, at least. I suppose there could even have been more than two. Rog's postcard and the memory of early '70s and RR's image, which I would say from the car is definitely around 10 years later.

 

Also check out the other Lotus exotica in the carpark.

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8 hours ago, denshaw said:

Could have been two occasions when this happened?

That's the conclusion i was coming to!!

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I was born and grew up in the shadow of Players Radford factories. In fact my mum would always tell me if I asked what time I was born, "dinner time when Players were coming out" As the factory turned out at 1pm and 5pm the usually quiet Churchfield Lane where the entry  to my house emerged became awash with crowds rushing from the factory. Mainly woman, many with their rollers and head scarfs if they were going out that evening. As a very young child I'd go and stand at the top of the entry and watch the turnout. Once I must have stepped out into the throng as a woman found me outside the shops on Alfreton Road and took me home recognising me as the 'lad who watched from the entry'   Thank you whoever you were. When older out playing on cold days, we'd go to Prospect Street where there was a big louvred outlet, constantly blowing volumes of warm tobacco scented air out all the time. Players was a huge ever present beating heart at the centre of my Radford world, it's sweet tobacco scent filling the air. I could see it from the school playground, and read the Churchfield Lane clock. It was there when I looked out from Mr Williams class at Berridge School. I went to work there in my late teens, fascinated to see the inside of what I'd been around for so long and able to look down on my stomping ground whenever I was on a high floor and found a window. Being couped up in a factory wasn't for me though and I moved on after a few years.

I well remember when the Radford factories were demolished. I lived quite close on Truro Crescent and heard the crashes of tumbling walls for weeks. I actually mourned it's disappearance a sort of bereavement, such was its impact on me. Radford has never been the same. 

I never stepped foot in Horizon factory nor had the same connection but this post bought Players back to my thoughts.

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They can never demolish your memories letsavagoo and there's some good ones in your post

 

Rog

 

 

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But the above photo is not Horizon, there is a past & present imperial tobacco Facebook site with lots of "workers photos" I'm not a Facebooker, but have been shown some interesting unseen photos, if anyone's on it have a look.

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3 hours ago, letsavagoo said:

I As the factory turned out at 1pm and 5pm the usually quiet Churchfield Lane where the entry  to my house emerged became awash with crowds rushing from the factory.  As a very young child I'd go and stand at the top of the entry and watch the turnout.

 

I didn't live there but, as I've mentioned in other threads, my grandparents lived just down the road from you and my grandad would've been one of the people walking home twice a day (although he walked up from the bottom end of Grimston Road). We often used to visit them in school holidays and I remember him turning up at about ten-past-one to have his dinner, and then walking off again at ten-to-two.

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