Emma Warren visits Foyles to chart the seismic cultural impact of the youth club - and its rise and fall - with John Grindrod.
'Youth clubs have always existed. They always will, because there will always be young people. How we care for our youth, and what we owe them, is a question for all of us.'
In Up the Youth Club, Emma Warren maps the shifting story of youth clubs in the UK and Northern Ireland, from factory workers in Victorian Boys’ and Girls’ clubs to renegade self-emancipatory spaces in the 1970s and the music-generating youth clubs of more recent decades. With a mixed lineage in church evangelism, the patronage of the upper classes, grassroots’ DIY, and erratic state funding, the youth club has had a huge, yet almost invisible, effect on music, sport, culture and society.
Arguing that we cannot advocate for what we do not understand, Warren positions youth clubs as a kind of engine room – from the famous success stories to come out of their doors, such as The Specials or Stormzy, to the untold stories of young people finding shelter, sustenance and stimulation for over a century – and why their dwindling numbers, largely due to austerity and funding cuts, is of serious concern for us all.
With this impassioned history, Warren invites us to pick up the torch and play an active part in protecting and re-igniting this vital part of UK society.
Emma Warren is the author of Up the Youth Club (Faber, 2025) which was an Irish Times read of the year. Her other books include Dance Your Way Home (2023), a Guardian Book of the year, which formed the basis of the Southbank Centre's 2025 summer season. Her other publications include Make Some Space (Sweet Machine, 2019), Steam Down (Rough Trade Books, 2019) and Document Your Culture (Sweet Machine, 2020). A dual citizen of Ireland and the UK, she worked on staff at The Face and as the editorial mentior at youth-run Brixton publication Live Magazine. Her monthly radio show on Worldwide FM ran for six years.