7 things you definitely did growing up in Mansfield

Growing up in Mansfield meant following certain traditions and taking part in certain activities.
Mansfield. Photo - Ashley BookerMansfield. Photo - Ashley Booker
Mansfield. Photo - Ashley Booker

Here, we’ve taken a look at some of the things everyone who grew up in Mansfield will have done.

Click on the pictures to see them all.

Most villages in the area had a junior jazz band - including the Mansfield Woodhouse Byronaires, Mansfield Coronets, Rainworth Royals, Church Warsop Alley Cats, Meden Vale Melody Makers, Blidworth Red Devils, Bilsthorpe Legionnaires, Newlands and Dukeries Silverbirds, Ollerton Tartonaires, Sutton Sentinels, Kirkby Greenwoods, Edwinstowe Greenwoods, Clipstone Comets and the Pinxton Panthers. If you lived in ‘Wudhus’ - or Mansfield Woodhouse - the sounds of the Byronaires practising at Manor School will live long in the memory.

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Nowadays most teens buy the latest must-have song via iTunes, but back in the day Syd Booths was the place to go for music-lovers - with an original shop on Rosemary Street before opening premises were opened on Queen Street and inside the Four Seasons Shopping Centre as well as the Idlewells in Sutton. The Four Seasons shop later became the Revolver and the original HMV shop and is now home to a cafe.

The Stags are currently riding high in League Two, but back in the late 80s they were quite a force to be reckoned with in the lower leagues. Who can forget Mansfield being a ghost town in May 1987 as we all flocked to Wembley in our thousands to watch Ian Greaves’ men defeat Bristol City on penalties to win the Freight Rover Trophy?

Nowadays it’s the gleaming Rebecca Adlington Swimming Centre - named after our Olympic double gold medalist Becky - but back in the day it was Sherwood Baths, a place where schoolchildren from across the area were bused in on Redfern Travel or Rainworth Travel coaches for weekly swimming lessons. Memories of the grey-looking, ‘freezing’ 25-metre pool may still send a shiver down the spine of some who learned to swim there! And who can forget the coloured-lit buzzers on the wall of the smaller, much warmer pool which signaled your time in the water had come to an end?

It’s hard to believe that Mansfield Leisure Centre once stood on the site which is now home to a multi-million pound Tesco supermarket. Opened in 1980, the affectionately-known ‘Chocolate box’ building was the place to go to watch and play sport. Many boxing fans growing up in the town will remember Prince Naseem Hamed’s first professional fight taking place at the centre in April 1992.

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Today, Mansfield is served by a modern, multiplex cinema on an expansive - and often congested - leisure park. In the 80s the popular ABC cinema on Leeming Street was the place to go to watch the latest blockbuster - such as Back to the Future, Ghostbusters and Superman! But getting into the building was easier said than done, with large queues often snaking round the site and beyond as eager youngsters - some on first dates - anxiously tried to bag themselves a seat on the back row.

It wouldn’t have been Christmas without an appearance by Sooty and his friends to the Mansfield Civic Theatre, now Palace Theatre of course. Youngsters and their parents would flock to the theatre in their droves to watch Matthew Corbett struggle miserably to keep Sooty, Sweep and Sue in order.

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