Tommy Dolan, the man behind the legendary Tommy’s House of Fires in Old Trafford, has died aged 72.
His iconic storefront has been a fixture in the town for years – and any self-respecting South Mancunian will be more than familiar with its busy, if dilapidated, frontage.
Owned for decades by the Eccles-born businessman, who identified as a Hulme lad through and through and ran a series of successful chippies before venturing into the world of marble fireplaces, there’s nowhere else quite like it.
For years, Tommy’s House of Fires was a go-to spot, not just for Old Trafford locals but also for rich and famous footballers thanks, in part, to its close proximity to the Manchester United grounds.
Counted amongst Tommy’s most famous customers was The Prodigy Firestarter the late Keith Flint, who notoriously then went on a three-day bender with Tommy that, allegedly, saw the businessman spiked with LSD.
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The 72-year-old also saw a fair bit of national fame in his time, thanks to a series of weird and wonderful advertising campaigns he ran in the 90s.
Most famous, of course, was the ‘FREE SEX (with every 100 fires sold)’ advert, swiftly followed by ‘TOMMY’S GETTING A DIVORCE – (come get it before she gets half)’.
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Tommy may not have been actually getting a divorce, but that didn’t matter – it landed him in all the national newspapers, and that more than did the job of promoting his business.
Tommy passed away peacefully in his sleep unexpectedly last month, leaving behind his wife Judy of over 50 years Judy, and his four children TJ, Emma, Anna and Danny.
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An iconic South Manchester character, he will be greatly missed by all who knew him and those in the local community who grew to know his shop over the years.
His funeral will be held on Tuesday 22 August at St John’s in Chorlton at 12pm, followed by a wake at The Woodstock in Didsbury at 2pm.
Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the 14 national museums of the UK are all located in England – including the Imperial War Museum North, and the Science and Industry Museum in our region – and free entry to was first introduced all the way back in 2001, with millions of visitors having benefitted since.
National museums are said to add more than £1 billion a year to the economy, and bring in visitors from all over the world.
In fact, seven of the UK’s 10 most visited museums are national museums, and 7.1 million people visited the Natural History Museum and 6.4 million visited the British Museum in 2025 alone.
The Government has announced that all national museums in the UK will remain free for everyone to visit / Credit: Science Museum Group | Wikimedia Commons
Earlier this year though, the Government committed to working with local leaders and the museum and tourism sectors to explore whether charging overseas visitors could help museums’ finances.
But following this, it’s now believed that charging could deter visitors, and that the impacts and benefits would ‘not be felt equally’ across the sector.
Instead, the free entry will be funded by the £1.5 billion Arts Everywhere Fund – which is providing £760 million for museums – while £600 million of infrastructure funding is supporting national museums and DCMS-sponsored cultural organisations.
The latter funding will be used to address critical maintenance and works to estates, and enable institutions to deliver on their commitments to share collections with visitors from around the world.
A further £160 million is coming from The Museum Estates and Development Fund to help museums tackle maintenance backlogs.
On top of that, the Government will work with Arts Council to develop a long-term strategic plan for the future of museums.
Featured Image – Science Museum Group
News
Man City release statement after being found guilty of all charges related to Premier League’s financial rules
Emily Sergeant
Manchester City has finally broken its silence after being found guilty all of its charges related to the Premier League’s financial rules.
Yesterday, the Premier League released a formal statement confirming that an independent Commission had found Manchester City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period.
On top of that, the club was also found guilty of the majority of charges in relation to its failure to co-operate with the League’s investigation.
According to the Premier League, the independent Commission found that Manchester City had arranged so-called ‘sham’ commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the nine-season period – which were part of a disguised funding scheme, with those sponsors only required to pay a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees.
The remainder was then funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.
The Commission also concluded, as quoted by the Premier League, that the club had ‘made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the Premier League investigation’.
Following this report being published yesterday, Manchester City has now finally released a statement of its own, breaking its silence on the topic for the first time since the news broke last Friday.
The statement reads in full: “Manchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League Commission, that has been published today.
“The Club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case. The Club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.
“The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted. Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.
“The Club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.
“The Club is obviously restricted in what it can say further until all future proceedings are complete.”
Georgina Pellant -
10th August 2023 
