Howard
I think with both Thomson and MacColl there would be no problem anyway - Dylan seems to have made it clear that he had moved on, though some of his followers seem to have had trouble in following in the steps of the master.
Maybe a "right" it too strong a word - nowadays
Many clubs were "not to my taste" in the old days, but we managed to co-exist comfortably.
Noww we seem to have undergone a sort of acculturation, where folk has been driven out by something else.
I totally disagree with you that the hard core had anything whatever to do with the demise of the clubs.
In my experience, the hard core were very much a minority and constantly the target of 'finger-in-the-ear' and 'purist' and being misfit cranks.
The period that I believe Mike was referring to, when standards plummeted and choice disappeared what, as far as I can remember, the time of the Great Crash - by that time, the hard core clubs were all but an extinct species.
I really don't believe that those who would not abandon their commitment to putting on the music they thought worth the effort, in favour of keeping bums on seats no matter what they put on, can be in any way as being "hard core" - far from it.
Jim Carroll