'Our punk baptism': When the Sex Pistols brought anarchy to Yorkshire

"It didn't feel like just another gig. It felt almost quite scary, but also very exciting," says Mat Watkinson as he recalls a musical experience like no other - when infamous punk band the Sex Pistols came to Yorkshire for the first time.

Remembering that night almost exactly 50 years on, Mat says he was working as a DJ at the Penthouse venue in the North Yorkshire seaside resort of Scarborough when the Pistols hit the stage there on 20 May 1976 - their second gig in the county in just 24 hours.

The night before their Scarborough gig, the quartet - at the time consisting of singer John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, bassist Glen Matlock and drummer Paul Cook - had played in the market town of Northallerton, while the following night they would be heading just up the road to Middlesbrough Town Hall.

"I liked it because it was different, because it was lively," Mat smiles, as memories of the gig in Scarborough come flooding back.

Before these three gigs, the Sex Pistols had only ever played clubs in London and a few shows in the home counties - now it was the turn of Yorkshire to experience the burgeoning punk scene first-hand.

The Pistols' gig at Sayer's nightclub in Northallerton on 19 May, in front of just a few dozen people, was also an unforgettable experience, this time for Brian Simpson, the club's DJ.

"I announced them three times to come on stage - and there was nothing," Brian says.

"I asked one of the bouncers, 'Where's the band?' and he said, 'I think they're over there in the corner, fast asleep'.

"He went over and spoke to them and they just walked across tables, knocked chairs over, climbed over a small wall onto the dancefloor and started. I thought, 'What the hell is this?'

"There were people sort of looking round and I noticed quite a few people walk out, but there were a few at the front and they were really liking them."

Although the crowd at the Northallerton show barely made it into double figures, on the following night 53 miles (85km) away in Scarborough, the crowd was certainly bigger, but still did not fill the Penthouse, which had a limit of 350 people.

"We didn't really know what to expect and what we did get was a bunch of Sex Pistols fans who travelled with them and some of our own local people who were the ones that were a little bit critical of it," says Mat.

"I'd say there were no more than 60-70 people in which, in a club that size, you notice them lurking behind the railings, hunkering over the bar.

"The band didn't really want anybody to introduce them. Normally you would do the big showbiz thing and say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome on stage, the Sex Pistols'.

"They were like, 'We're not having any of that, don't want any of that, shut up' and they just went straight on to play," Mat remembers.

Close to the end of their set, bassist Matlock broke a string and left the stage, which led to some confusion.

"Rather than say anything, he walked off stage into the dressing room to change it, at which point the manager decided he'd sprint over and stick a record on. He put on some Rod Stewart," Mat says.

"Johnny Rotten was not pleased. He said, 'Get this junk off right now. We're not going on.' You've never seen anybody move so fast.

"They finished the set and walked off. No shaking hands with anybody, no acknowledging anything. But that was our baptism in Scarborough for punk."

According to the band's official website, the Sex Pistols went on to play in Middlesbrough on 21 May 1976 before going back to London.

Some fans believe the band might also have played a gig in Lincoln on 22 May and then Barnsley on 23 May, but it is unclear whether they officially went ahead.

Ian Trowell, a punk and subculture researcher, says that at that point the band were still "pretty much unknown outside London", so their early trip to Yorkshire was "a bold move".

"Punk wasn't a major thing in any way. It took these places by surprise," he says.

Despite playing more than 50 gigs in 1976, the Sex Pistols only released their debut single, Anarchy in the UK, that November.

"We could say in May '76, punk really wasn't much outside of London," says Ian, who has been holding an exhibition, Holidays In The Sun: Sex Pistols, Scarborough & The Seaside, as part of the town's Big Ideas by the Sea festival.

"By the end of '76, punk had arrived as a mainstream thing. Through that year, it really gathered speed," he says.

Speaking to the BBC in 2016, drummer Cook clearly remembered those first gigs in Yorkshire.

"That was the first time really we'd ventured way outside of London," he said.

"We tapped into something straight away and I think wherever we went it influenced a lot of people."

Two weeks after the band concluded their short Yorkshire tour, they returned to the north of England, this time on the other side of the Pennines.

Headlining at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall, their gig has since attained legendary status, attended by future members of Joy Division and The Smiths, among others.

"I'm not trying to pretend the North Yorkshire gigs are more than what it was and to build a Manchester-style myth around it, but it is a line in the sand," says Ian.

Mat agrees: "I do think it was quite a coup. It was a feather in North Yorkshire's cap."

Just 15 months after they played in Scarborough to a very limited crowd, the Pistols returned to the Penthouse in August 1977, this time with Sid Vicious on bass.

By now, the band were front page news following an expletive-filled appearance on TV, and they had a hit single with God Save the Queen, which, despite being at number two in the charts, was banned by the BBC just in time for Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee.

A number of local authorities had also banned the Sex Pistols from performing, meaning they had to play shows under pseudonyms.

"We weren't allowed to advertise them as Sex Pistols," recalls Mat.

"They called themselves SPOTS - Sex Pistols On Tour Secretly - and that's how they were billed in the paper," he says.

"They said, 'If you put Sex Pistols anywhere at all, we just won't perform'."

However, despite the desired anonymity, the band still played to hundreds of fans at the Penthouse, rather than the few dozen who saw them before.

"We could only legally have 350-360 people in, we could not accommodate them all," Mat says.

"But that didn't stop them queuing up and so the band played to an absolutely packed house.

"It was quite unsavoury conditions really because it was very, very hot. There was perspiration running off the wall with people spitting everywhere, drinks flying around."

Fifty years on from those North Yorkshire shows, the Pistols return to the county for an anniversary gig at Scarborough's Open Air Theatre on 2 August, with Frank Carter, formerly of Gallows, fronting the band which still features Jones, Matlock and Cook.

For Brian, who has swapped Northallerton for Thailand, heading back to the seaside for the show is too impractical.

"I would probably enjoy seeing them 50 years on, but I'm on the other side of the world," he says.

However, Mat is less interested in seeing them without Johnny Rotten.

"It's happened all through pop music history: bands have a name and artists come and go within the band," he says.

"I do think John was a very important part of the band and I can't reconcile that with Frank, it doesn't seem right to me."

Meanwhile, Ian, who still lives in North Yorkshire, says he will be going to see the Pistols this summer.

"I've never been a big person to go down the nostalgic route, but I have got a ticket.

"It will be just a celebration. I'm not going to be too critical of it," he says.

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.