PETER Hook lets loose fatalistic guffaws as he retells his part in the strange history of Manchester's most famous nightclub. The Haçienda occupies a huge place in his heart - and an equally huge hole in his bank balance.

In the 15 years that the Haçienda held court at the corner of Whitworth Street West and Albion Street, his band, New Order, pumped an estimated £6m into the club. It was Hook who was running the Haçienda - at a personal cost of £7,500 a month - when it closed for the last time.

The working title for his book about those heady days, to be published next June, is How Not To Run A Club.

And yet there is a rosy glow to his recollections, 25 years after the club opened and 10 years after it shut. Haçienda nostalgia is breaking out all over.

An exhibition about the Haçienda has opened at Urbis. There are Haçienda compilation albums, even a limited edition Haçienda trainer - dreamed up by the club's design guru Peter Saville - and Hook, now a DJ after New Order called it a day, is running a series of Haçienda 25 events.

"Everybody said 'why did you wait so long to do a compilation CD?' and the answer is that it probably took 10 years for the pain to go away," says Hook.

"The biggest question you get asked is whether you regret any of it. While I regret that we were foolish enough to lose a lot of money, you don't regret the importance the Haçienda has."
Looking back over the headlines the Haçienda created, they are a curious mix. On the dance floor, the giddy feelgood factor of the acid house explosion, circa 1988, created what was hailed as a new Summer of Love.

Malevolence

Yet in the shadows, the Haçienda was also a magnet for malevolence as the gangs of Manchester forced their way in. Central to all this was a new drugs culture based on ecstasy. Though it would be wrong to think that all the loved-up euphoria was chemically-induced, says Hook.

"Everyone assumed that everyone in the Haçienda was off their heads on ecstasy," Hook says today. "It isn't true. There was maybe 10 per cent. Everybody else was high on life."

The Haçienda - set up in a former yachting warehouse in a then-tatty corner of the city centre - was the brainchild of the late Rob Gretton, manager of New Order, who simply felt there was nowhere to go in Manchester which suited his crowd.

"Rob started off modestly and got swept away with it. He was a gambler and he just kept gambling," says Hook.

Bizarrely, the first performer on the Haçienda's stage was Bernard Manning. More famously, Madonna made her first UK appearance at the club in 1984, broadcast on the Tube TV show.

But those early years were so lean that the club was frequently in danger of closing, saved only by New Order's cash. Then DJ Mike Pickering brought Chicago house music to Manchester, the smily-faced symbol of acid house was everywhere and rave took hold on the nation, with Manchester in the vanguard.

In 1987, New Order went to Ibiza, another hotbed of house music, to record the Technique album.

"The Happy Mondays came over at our instigation, checked it out and it just went ridiculous," says Hook.

Rave culture collided with defiantly Mancunian indie rock and the result was Madchester. But even as the Haçienda was being dubbed the best venue in Britain, Greater Manchester Police were trying to shut it down because of 'blatant drug-taking'.

Notable

"The Haçienda was the only club with the noble intention of trying to stop it," says Hook. "We used to turn over everything confiscated at the door to the police and we invited the police to stand on the door, which they said they couldn't do."

In 1991, the Haçienda closed voluntarily for over three months, Wilson declaring he was sick of the violence being caused by Manchester gangs.

"We felt when we reopened that we had solved it, by trebling the security, having 40 doormen and 15 dobermans," says Hook. "But you can't arm your doormen. They would say 'I've got a 17-year old kid there with a gun. What am I supposed to do?' "

Factory crashed with debts of £2m in 1992 - the Haçienda being a big factor in that, according to Hook. When the club closed in 1997 it was not the gangsters who were responsible but the men in bowler hats.

"The final nail in the Haçienda's coffin is really boring," says Hook. "The taxman was trying to close us down, and because we had such an outstanding bill with Ernst and Young, they would not supply us with the accounts which were five years behind."

Virgin came close to buying the Haçienda as a going concern, but looked at the books and took flight. The legend was further burnished in 2002 with the movie 24 Hour Party People. Did the film get it right?

"Memory is a very selective thing. Even as the four members of New Order, we remember things differently," says Hook, now aged 51.

"Everybody thinks it's their truth. 24 Hour Party People told a particular truth, which I thought was very funny.

"I remember reading in Peter Stringfellow's book that it's the kiss of death to have your club's name on your glasses, because everybody steals your glasses. The Haçienda had different glasses for every night, so people were collecting the bloody set."

Haçienda 25 The Exhibition: Fac 491 is at Urbis until Sunday, February 17. Click here for more information and check out our picture gallery from the launch party above. Tweet