Graham Nash, the singer-songwriter from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young who grew up in Salford, has donated £10,000 to the city’s embattled Salford Lads Club.
The youth centre, most famous from being immortalised on the sleeve for the Smiths album The Queen Is Dead, is attempting to crowdfund £250,000 after a drop in grant funding threatened its future.
Nash, who was a member of the club as a boy, made his donation via the crowdfunding page, set up in association with Manchester Evening News.
The redbrick building was opened in 1904 and is Grade II listed, with English Heritage saying it is “thought to be the most complete example of this rare form of social provision to survive in England”. It later began admitting girls, and is now officially called Salford Lads and Girls Club.
The club hopes to cover maintenance and utilities costs, and hire new staff who can help secure future grant funding, eventually raising enough funds for a trust to ensure its long term financial future.
Nash revisited the club in 2016 with the BBC, saying: “This is the stage where I first sang”.
After his Salford boyhood, Nash went on to co-found pop group the Hollies, who had mid-60s hits such as Just One Look, I Can’t Let Go and the UK chart-topping I’m Alive. He visited the US in 1968 where he formed Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young, who took folk-rock to stadium-filling success.
Nash helped to steer the notoriously fractious group into the early 1970s, after which they split and reformed numerous times. Nash also released solo albums, and pursued a successful photography career.
