Thanks to Ang Matthews (whose presently selling swathes of FAC memorabilia on eBay if you're interested) for the following recollections of The Haçienda Cat:

"The cat lived in the basement in the early 80s - I presumed it was a stray. I seem to think it was either called Fred or that Fred was the person who fed it. It was never referred to as Fac 191 - we always referred to it as the Haçienda cat.

I also seem to remember Teresa talking about it so perhaps she cared for it. It was scruffy and sort of in between black & brown. The basement had a lot of tiny mice so it would have been ideal for a cat - I occasionaly found one (a mouse) pissed in the bottom of an upturned pint pot that had a little beer left in it. (I'm being completely serious here).

I'm not a 'cat' person so would not be stroking it but I don't think anyone would have thought it was cute looking. I don't know what happened to it - I expect a canal rat got it in the end. I never saw a photo of it and I don't believe that the photo in NME was the real one."

Thanks also to Dev, whose question, triggered Cerysmatic's feline investigations.

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