A famous super club in Merseyside was formed by accident and introduced Liverpool to house music.
Quadrant Park opened in the late 80s in Bootle, but it was in 1990 it became more influential. In the beginning, it was primarily a mainstream nightclub playing chart music. But then it took off and the club started to establish itself as one of the UK's first "super clubs".
By mid-1990 the club was drawing crowds of up to 2,500. Also known as the Quad, or Quaddie, this Bootle nightclub on Derby Road at the time was said to be the UK's only legal all-night rave, because it didn’t sell alcohol.
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But many may not know the super club started by accident. The students at Hugh Baird had been pestering their tutor, Mike Knowler, to put on a party for them in the Christmas of 1989.
They knew that Mike was a top DJ at the State nightclub in Liverpool city centre, and wanted a big night out. Unfortunately, The State was about to close, so Mike asked the owner of Bootle club Quadrant Park if they could help. Jim Spencer, the club's then owner, agreed.
At the time Quadrant Park was very much a "Sharon and Tracy" club in that it played commercial music for a mainstream audience. But that was all about to change.
Mike Knowler's Christmas Party for his students pulled in over 1,000 people, to the incredulity of the club's management. They quickly asked Mike to host the same event every Thursday, and the Southport DJ was soon playing house music to thousands of people.
The success attracted clubbers from across the country, and the Quad became a rival to Manchester's world famous Hacienda. And then the club used their snooker hall's 24 hour license to host legal all night raves, which soon entered into folklore.
The club had to stop the all-nighters as authorities realised that non members were being let in and the club lost its all-night license. However, it continued to thrive as a house music venue.
Quadrant Park closed its doors for the last time in January 1992, Mike told the ECHO that Quadrant Park’s life was short it still managed to etch out an important place in the history of Liverpool’s nightclubs.
He said: “It was Liverpool’s first super club, and I think the Quad gave birth to Cream.”
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