THE CLUB'S ORIGINS

Tracing the earliest origins of this Club is not simple. It's not as if it goes back to the 19th century or anything like that. It's just that members who were around at the time (and who are fortunate enough to be still around today) can't seem to agree on the genesis of what later became the Gandia Area Social Club (International). Memories, like ancient photographs, having faded with time. Each person consulted claims to recall events, but never dates! with total clarity. So this is an attempt by a very new member (three years or so) to re-construct for posterity the beginnings of this worthy society before the collective memory, however confused, is lost for all time.

As long ago as the early or middle 1980s, when the British population of the area was still miniscule, a number of British residents were, according to one source, meeting regularly on Tuesday evenings at a venue called Clavo de Oro in Daimus Playa. They met to play whist and swap war stories about the perils and pleasures of living in this part of Spain. Whether this group had any direct lineage to the present club is still unclear. What seems certain is that as the British population began to grow, people started getting together on a regular basis - as compatriots in a foreign land will always do - to enjoy each others' company and exchange information, experiences and whinges, all of which is what 'socializing' comes down to in the end, isn't it.

It seems there were several of these pioneering informal groups meeting at various and frequently changing locations in this area. Possibly the first to settle on a fixed abode convened weekly at an Italian restaurant called Bambalini (or similar) in Gandia Grau. (The restaurant is still there, but differently named.) Around 1986 or 1987 the group held a meeting and resolved to set up a more formally constituted club based at that restaurant. The prime mover in the efforts to put things on a more formal footing under Spanish Law was a man named Michael Allen, a colourful character by all accounts, of Polish (some say Russian) origin. Who, in or after World War II, had risen to Sergeant Major status in the British army (before he was demoted back to Sergeant). Unfortunately, the restaurant management, when approached, wouldn't go along with the idea of being the club’s venue, for reasons now obscure.

So another venue was sought. It was in 1987 or 1988 that the embryonic club settled at El Plat Restaurant in Carrer Sant Pere, Gandia, the side street with the big lamparia on the corner opposite the main hospital. (Some sources recall the restaurant name being El Bankette, but whether this was the same place is still not certain.) The restaurant is no longer there, but the old timers say it faced the main entrance of the Park Sant Pere where, incidentally, the Club' s original petanca meetings took place.

Michael AlIen is acknowledged by all those members who go back to those early days as the founder and first President of the Club. The first membership list dated 15 June 1988 named 34 members, with Michael as President. The Club evidently grew swiftly in popularity because on the second list dated 15 Feb 1989, the membership had swelled to 62.

The work to register the Club fully under the Spanish statutes continued and on 29 May 1989 it received full legal certification from the Interior Ministry of the Valencian Community Government. This has to be the Club's official birthday.

Some time in 1990, the Club was forced to move from El Plat, possibly because of its imminent closure, and a new location was found just a street away. Known first as Imperio (or Imperial) and later as Royale, this venue became the Club's home for something like eight years. (If recent research is sound, this bar/restaurant is still there, now re-named Natalie’s. If you enter Natalie’s today it has a short flight of steps into a lounge with seating on the left and a long bar on the right. These open onto a dancehall with peripheral dining tables and at the far end a small stage - exactly as older members recall the Royale.)

Trouble was brewing in early 1991. Then, as now, any organization of three or more people sooner or later gets politics. It was the time of the First Gulf War and the events in the Middle East seemed to re-kindle something of the Sergeant Major persona in Michael Allen. He upset members and became unpopular through his autocratic approach to the operation of the Club. Matters came to a head at a Committee meeting not long afterwards when the entire Committee (only five or six strong at the time) resigned in protest against his running of the Club. And that seems to have been the last of Michael Allen.

As time went on, the membership continued to grow. Unfortunately though, Gandia’s traffic was also on a steep upward curve and parking started to become a major headache. The Committee began to search for a more convenient location for the Club and in 1998 found La Garrota in Miramar village. This has been the Club's home ever since. At the. time of the move the membership stood at between 80 and 90, but the following few years saw the numbers grow dramatically as the scale of immigration into the area from northern Europe and elsewhere rocketed. Membership peaked at above 300 in 2003. Later in the same year, the Spanish family-operated Restaurant La Garrota passed into British ownership in the shape of George and Ray Geddes of Inverness. The change of stewardship of the restaurant has made little difference to the operation of the Club and it continues to thrive at La Garrota.

This short provisional history is subject to amendment in the detail as more recollections are teased from the memories of our more long-serving members.