THE impending closure of the Oxford Sports and Social Club will be a sad point in the history of this city.

Yet it is also a sign of the times and in many ways, while it is regrettable, perhaps it is better that the decision to close is being prompted by the loss of its historic base in Roman Way.

The membership figures really tell the full story. In the 1970s there were around 20,000 members – that now stands at about 1,000.

People’s leisure habits have changed and, as trustee Roy Edney says, the club faces other commercial pressures – such as the cheap alcohol at supermarkets – that just did not exist 40 or 50 years ago.

Some will try to paint BMW as the villain but the company has, by all accounts, been supportive of the social club and other organisations based there.

Although it is being exceptionally tight-lipped, it clearly has designs on the sports grounds site for some form of expansion.

It is perhaps a little naive to expect BMW to just stump up for a whole new facility.

Taking a pragmatic view the 2016 date at least gives the club a date which it can work towards to bring down the curtain in a dignified manner.

All too often with such clubs, they implode in debt and rancour.

We will mourn its passing, but hopefully Oxford Sports and Social Club will be able to go out remembered as a much-loved institution that served its members and this community so well for 90 years.

It deserves that much.