In 1976, as far as I can unearth, Dale Martin promoted wrestling returned to Staines after an absence of more than 20 years.
What makes this minor footnote worth anything is the erm, 'quality' of the programmes that were produced for the first few shows, by some keen member of the local Lions club, who were sponsoring the shows:
Tornado Torontos as referee!!! Now I've seen it all.
Great finds Hack, ties the thread up nicely. All legit bills, with an added dose of home-made publicity as we saw at the start.
Little wonder I lost interest about that time!
I'm wondering if those low budget Staines programmes are genuine. I couldn't have been the only one amongst us to create my own programmes when a child. Here's the posters for the two Staines shows and a Staines programme for a few weeks later. This doesn't look a low budget affair.
Here's one from 1974. I can't imagine paying for this:
Slightly amended the topic title so we can add other low budget/questionable quality offerings here.
The top left hand programme looks like it has typewritten text on the inside. I wonder if Dale Martin produced that and left it to the local promoters to add the venue/date details and the bill. Just guessing, but 'In Association with' suggests it might have been a sold show by which the Lions Club paid a flat fee to Dale Martin and then sold the tickets/did the local promotion itself. It could be that the Lions got the rights to make and sell the programmes as part of the deal. It's also possible that it was such a low priority show that DM didn't finalise the bill until much later than with their own shows and thus didn't have time to get the programmes produced themselves.
Maybe your Pontin's, Ron, is like the Lions in Staines? Both captive audiences, non-ticket-buying. Non need to entice, merely to inform.
Amazing bills and about as low as it gets without actually advertising at all which I could never understand.
At Pontins they stuck a blackboard outside the canteen , Wrestling Today in the Ballroom 3 P.M.
I heard a rumour that Monica Lewinsky visited Staines some years ago as part of a book-signing tour and that it compared very poorly with a book-signing visit she made to The Lake District. She was overheard saying, "I really hate Staines but I love Cockermouth." Or something like that!
What a great find, Ost, never seen anything like it. These were actually programmes at a bob each!
I could come up with two scenarios:
- they were on a tight budget, no money for McManus or Haystacks or Big Daddy, and when they made the booking they said they'd do their own publicity to economise - maybe they had a captive (LIons) audience in a limited size hall.
- I can't help thinking that these 18 were all Dale Martin stalwarts who trusted each other and could have been sick of the Crabtree management. D'Orazio had a history of playing away. Maybe by 1976 their DM bookings were drying up as the Crabtree crisis took effect. Not one northerner, not one newbie (Penzy must have lived in the south). Maybe they saw the chance of a DIY show paid in cash.
Does anyone have any other programmes from here, or any other programmes of the like (i.e. handmade)? Did anyone attend wrestling in this area?
Would love to know more.