As the band get their star on Friday, we trace the school, the market stall and the West Street pub where it all began

Long before Common People, before Glastonbury and sold-out arenas, Pulp were a band of Sheffield teenagers rehearsing in a front room in Intake.

On Friday, the city will honour them with a star on the Sheffield Walk of Fame. But the band’s story is written across Sheffield’s streets, schools and pubs.

A front room on Mansfield Road

It starts in Intake. Jarvis Cocker spent the first 18 years of his life at a house on Mansfield Road. It was there that the earliest version of Pulp took shape.

Cocker formed the band in 1978 at City School with classmate Peter Dalton. Cocker was 15, Dalton 14. They rehearsed at Cocker’s house, with Dalton’s younger brother Ian joining in.

At first they called themselves Arabicus. The name Pulp came later, a nod to the Michael Caine film of the same name.

Lunchtime at City School

The band’s first gig was not in a club or a pub, but at their school on Stradbroke Road. They played during a Wednesday lunch break in March 1980, encouraged by a maths teacher.

It was a modest start for a band that would one day headline festivals around the world.

Scrubbing crabs at Castle Market

While he dreamed of pop stardom, Cocker was working Saturdays on a fishmonger’s stall at Castle Market. His mum had arranged the job, believing he needed toughening up.

The experience found its way into his songwriting. One early Pulp track was called I Scrubbed the Crabs that Killed Sheffield.

The Hallamshire Hotel

In August 1980, Pulp played their first Sheffield pub gig at the Hallamshire Hotel on West Street.

The pub would become a second home. It is the venue they have played most often in their 46-year career.

A tape for John Peel

The first real break came in 1981. Cocker found the nerve to hand a demo tape to Radio 1 DJ John Peel while he was in Sheffield on a roadshow. Peel gave the band a radio session.

Even so, Sheffield was not convinced. Locals were split between those who saw Cocker as a pop star in waiting and those who thought he was wasting his time.

A fall on Division Street

In 1985, Cocker fell from a window ledge on Division Street while trying to impress a girl. He spent months in a wheelchair.

A plaque now marks the spot, one of the city’s more unusual tributes to its most famous son.

Nearly giving up

By the late 1980s, after a decade of trying, Cocker was burnt out and ready to quit. Guitarist Russell Senior persuaded him to carry on.

It paid off. In 1995, 17 years after Pulp formed, Common People turned them into one of the biggest bands in the country. The Star joked at the time that the overnight success had taken 15 years to happen.

Always coming home

Fame never pulled Pulp far from Sheffield. Members were regulars at The Washington on Fitzwilliam Street in their early days.

When they reunited, they returned to play two homecoming shows at what is now the Utilita Arena. Last summer they released More, their first album in 24 years.

Back where it began

On Friday, Pulp will be inducted into the Walk of Fame outside Sheffield Town Hall at 2 p.m., joining names including Joe Cocker, Gordon Banks, Jessica Ennis and Sean Bean.

Afterwards, the celebration moves to the Hallamshire Hotel, which will become a Pulp pop-up pub for the day. Fans can expect archive posters and artwork, band films, a pop-up shop, a meet and greet with Nick Banks and Candida Doyle from noon, a quiz and fancy dress competition in the early evening and Pulp karaoke from 8 p.m.

Anyone can come along to watch the induction.