Retro: Clubland Cookstown was an iconic disco where a strange spaceship descended from the ceiling to signal Blast Off!!

​For teenagers in the 1980s and ’90s ​Clubland, often prefixed with ‘The’, and sometimes called The Pink Pussycat, on Cookstown’s Molesworth Street, was the closest thing to Shangri-La in our miserable, homework-addled, spotty-skinned lives.
Clubland Cookstown was an iconic spot to go dancingClubland Cookstown was an iconic spot to go dancing
Clubland Cookstown was an iconic spot to go dancing
By Helen McGurk
Published 8th Sep 2023, 12:10 BST
Updated 8th Sep 2023, 12:21 BST

At exactly 10.30pm every Saturday, the dancefloor was cleared by bouncers so O Fortuna (from Carmina Burana) could pump out while everyone gathered round the edges to watch a huge spaceship-like light descend from the ceiling and spin – this was Blast Off and it was a little bit bizarre, but a whole lot magic.

After this, the dancing could begin in earnest. Girls wearing the latest Top Shop trends danced alongside miserable-looking, pan-sticked goths as The Cure’s Love Cats blasted out from the speakers. Queues formed at the bar for stomach-churning concoctions like cider and blackcurrant or Malibu and Coke, and somewhere a painfully shy boy was plucking up the courage to talk to a girl.

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Clubland attracted teenagers from all the local schools and way beyond (people would travel huge distances to the legendary disco). It was a place where all religions mixed, where society’s normal rules were suspended, and teens got on with the business of being young during some of the darkest days of the troubles.

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