ONE of the last bastions of male pride is under siege - but stalwarts of the North-East's workingmen's clubs have vowed not to go down without a fight.

Trade at the clubs has nosedived in recent years. And now, in a bid to ensure their survival, the Club and Institute Union, which oversees 2,786 clubs across the country, plans to up the stakes on the issue of access to women.

At the CIU annual conference next year, it will be proposed that women must be allowed unrestricted access to all workingmen's clubs for the first time.

At the moment, some clubs ban women completely while others allow them only into their lounge areas.

But insiders believe the scheme has no chance of going ahead because officials have tried to get it passed before, and it has always been turned down by members.

The proposal does not impress men like Henry Robinson, 79, a life-long member of the RAOB club in Wilton Street, Middlesbrough.

"When the union of working men's clubs was founded in 1862 it was for men," he said.

"Men went into the bar to get away from their wives for a couple of hours, wives knew where their husbands were and everyone was happy with this.

"It is not just me - I go to clubs from here to Loftus, Whitby and Guisborough and I just can't see it getting through.

"I have heard the arguments about feminism but times haven't changed for me. Women are allowed in the lounge and they are quite happy about it."

But Jill Radford, a professor of criminology and women's studies at Teesside University, said: "It is quite clearly discrimination and shouldn't be allowed, but what sound-minded woman wants to go to such a place if that is what they are like?

"It is worrying because the North-East has got a lot of images to live down in the rest of the UK and Europe."