Morrissey donates £50k to help save lads club

The singer has donated £50,000 to help club the Smiths helped popularise

The Smiths frontman Morrissey has stepped in to ensure the light never goes out at a youth club made famous in an "iconic" photo on one of the band's hit albums.

A £50,000 donation has been made to Salford Lads Club by the singer, after the centre on Coronation Street warned in November it could close without urgent financial help.

The club, a listed, redbrick building officially opened in 1904, was immortalised into Manchester's music history after featuring on the inside sleeve of The Smiths' 1986 album, The Queen is Dead.

Laura Slingsby from the club said Morrissey's intervention was "a really lovely, generous and overwhelming".

Smiths fans travel from across the world to visit the club over the band's connection

It is not the first time the singer has stepped into to help the club, with a £20,000 cash boost sent to help the club owners make repairs to the roof in 2007.

Morrisey's latest donation puts the club about £40,000 shy of its target of raising £250,000 by November to avoid imminent closure.

Organisers said the funds were needed after maintenance and staffing costs had begun to outstrip budgets, and to replenish reserves that had run dry.

The club runs youth programmes and football teams for boys and girls in the area, having originally been opened as a boys-only club by the founder of the Scout Movement, Robert Baden-Powell.

About £160,000 had been raised before Morrissey's donation, with £100,000 given by Salford City Council.

Ms Slingsby said the support had been "so exciting", and had "really cemented" the feeling there were people who "wanted to support the youth and the building".