TURNING a £70,000 loss into a £70,000 profit in seven years was a Herculean task for Hedge End Club.

Julie Langford, the bubbly stewardess (“I like being called manager”), remembers with fondness her special customer, Blip.

“I so miss him,” she said.

Sitting in club secretary Maggie Crickmore’s office, Julie explained – almost successfully - how Pete Renault, who died last year, was known as Blip after the sound made by the boats he worked on.

“If it wasn’t for the customers I wouldn’t have stayed here,” she said.

And has anyone replaced Blip in her affections?

“Well,” she said. “There’s John – and the other John.”

Whether it’s Julie’s charms or hiring out the hall or the 12 barrels of Bowman’s Wallops, known as Wally, that the regulars get through every week - Hedge End Club is certainly bucking the declining trend in social club life.

Snooker captain Graham Shears, who was elected president in 2002, said: “We didn’t realise it, as members, that the club was really struggling – and I mean really struggling.

“A load of us got elected onto the committee back in 2002 to find out the club was in dire straits. It was a shock.

“We had to grovel to the bank to give us a couple of months to try and pull it round.”

Shears was introduced to snooker by Ian ‘Willy’ Waterman who still turns out for the team on the odd occasion.

“He doesn’t play from one year to the next,” explained Shears. “But you can guarantee he’ll do his job. He’ll always turn out for us if we need him.

“All the lads up here love him to bits.”

And dare it even be whispered, but team member Chris Sirl has a new slant on the controversial super league proposals.

Like the old inter-town matches, Sirl suggests a super league consisting of the top sides in Southampton, Winchester and Portsmouth.