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The club closed in 1981 but that didn’t stop interest in it and the genre that it made an essential part of the North-West music growing year on year to a point that it is now "more popular than ever", according to Russ Winstanley.

Russ is the man who founded the legendary club in 1973 and he remembers those times with the same sense of enjoyment that all Northern Soul fans seem to share.

"It was my idea for it [the Casino]. I was playing the music at Wigan Rugby Club for a couple of years and when we filled that, people were saying 'why don’t we do an all-nighter in Wigan?'

The Wigan Casino faithful

"We tried it and because the Casino was so big – we were squeezing about 2,500 to 3,000 people in – and we had nights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, it got so popular.

"We had four million people through the doors across the eight years. We were the opposite of the glam-rock time that was happening in the mid 70s."

Now Russ is about to revive the Casino at its original location. That, as the sharper minds will know, is a little difficult, as there’s now a shopping centre in its place, but such things aren’t about to put a stop to his plans. After all, he’s been waiting for this moment since the Casino closed in 1981.

The Casino now: Wigan's Grand Arcade

"The building was owned by the council and they wanted to knock it down to extend the Civic Centre, which they never did. There’d been a big car park there until about 18 months ago, when they started building a new centre, The Grand Arcade.

"Inside, there is a Casino Café, which we’re using part of, and the downstairs part of the mall, where we’ll have the ultimate event on the site of Wigan Casino, which we never ever thought we would do.

"We’ve got Dean Parrish, who sings I’m On My Way – the one that everyone went out to at the end of the night, or rather at the end of the morning at 8am – and Paul Weller has written a song called For Dancers Only, which he’ll be doing on the night as well."

Russ Winstanley

Russ is, of course, the only man who could have revived the venue. After all, alongside founding the Northern Soul nights in Wigan, he spent eight years DJing at the Casino. In that time, it grew into a massive success, something he puts down to one simple fact.

"The fact is that music, the up-tempo Northern Soul Motown record makes you want to get up and dance."

This time round, though, it won’t be an all-nighter. While Russ may have done eight years of 8am finishes at the original Casino, the re-visitation will be a little more sedate. As he puts it, "we’re doing 8.30pm until 2am, so it’s just an easy one for me."

Casino Revisited is on Sunday 26 August at Wigan’s Grand Arcade. Tickets are £12.

If you can’t make it, Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio Manchester will have coverage of the night from 10pm to 1am. Tune in at 95.1 FM or catch it all online