Well, thanks folks (!) I have just read the 101 posts to see if I can understand why their are less folk clubs than their were in 1972 or there abouts.

This is what I suggested at the start.
1. The quality of some, many?, was low
2. Their is a limit to the number of times anyone can enjoy the cannon of "popular folk songs"
3. It was a generational thing - we all went off to have children
4. The climate of 80s Thatcherism was running elswhere
5. Punk was much more exciting and then them New Romantics?

Folk was alternative and exciting to many of the baby boomer generation. It was exciting to go to small obscure places to hear music you could never really hear anywhere else. It was also exciting to go to The Philharmonic Hall to hear The Spinners, say what you like but many of us were excited. We were also excited seeing The Copper Family and Willie Scott at Festivals. We went on to be excited by Fairport .......... I was recently excited by The Boat Band and The Duncan McFarlane Band.

As Greg says somewhere above "
It's no good saying what you think ought to have happened in history." Some people above seem to want to blame others because the didn't get the history they wanted. As Mick and Keef said "You can't always get what you want .... How does that go on?

One of the essential features of Folk Clubs is they enable people to sing or play to others with out much criticism. This results in the best and the worst, because no matter how bad you are somebody will be worse but we can all get better if we respect the songs and each other.

Countess Richard speaks from much experience and I think has it about right. Why Wordy is so personally unpleasant? This brings nothing to the discussion.

I am not sure the "Darwinian" or market place effect has done a lot for quality. Their are still boring clubs around but perhaps low attendance will see them off. One feature I have noted is that some small club audiences are made up almost entirely of floor singers.

I think we have many reasons to be cheerful, lots of great mostly traditional music on CD and at festivals, a greater variety of folk events, dances, sing arounds, sessions and so on.

So, as part of my work for "Of-folk" its time to put a few more clubs into "Special Measures". In a recent Inspection ....... Club was found to Unsatisfactory.................