The club was started at the YMCA when the building first opened in the early 1970s by Mike Scales who is now chief instructor at the Coquitlam Shotokan Karate Club in Canada. In 1973 Andy Holmes joined the club at the age of 16 and also moved to Canada to become chief instructor of the Torakai Martial Arts Academy. Around about the same time, Peter Collins started training and continued teaching and training at the club for the next 35 years. Alan Hughes started in 1974 and is now the clubs chief instructor. Rob Willis was also a member before going on to start his own Dragons karate club. Many other well known people in Southport have been at the club since the early days including Joe Pyke, Gordon Galley, Mike Sullivan and Tony Owen to name just a few. The club was lucky enough to have Sensei Steve Cattle coming twice a week to teach at the club and it is great credit to him that his students went on to reach such high grades and have so much success in the sport. Other great instructors the club has had teaching here have been: Sensei Kase, Sensei Enoeda, Sensei Kawasoe, Sensei Mark Stevens, Sensei Julian Mead, Sensei Dave Wilkins and Sensei Frank Brennan. Dennis Martin has also taught self defence at the club a number of times. We started off in the KUGB (Karate Union of Great Britain) until Steve Cattle formed the ESA (English Shotokan Academy} which we then moved to with him. Steve's death in 1995 was a great loss to the association and in 2000 we joined Sensei Ken Button's HSA (Hara Shotokan Academy). Another fantastic instructor who Steve introduced to the club and who still comes down regularly is Sensei Derek Ridgeway, chief instructor of Kazoku Kai International. Sensei Mike Fedyk of the ESA also comes to the club to teach as well as Sensei Ken Button. The club instructors Alan and Danny have also recently had some excellent instruction from Senseis Pete McDowell, Alfie Lewis, Terry O'Neil, Wayne Otto, George Best, Katsu Tiru Jr and Bob Rhodes to name just a few.

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