Clubs mostly existed to clobber your inhibitions senseless so you could attempt to meet the sort of sexual partners you'd probably regret meeting the following morning. Sometimes you'd even go out a couple of times, slowly realising that really all you had in common was mutual incomprehension and a biological urge. That was a good outcome*. Mostly you'd go home and eat chips with your similarly unsuccessful flatmates.
Actually, it was good fun. I used to love it. I remember we used to go to a place called Macmillans in Liverpool. Sweat would drip from the ceilings and you had to dance to prevent your feet becoming permanent bonded to the floor. It was £5, if I recall, and they'd serve vodka and tizer. There were nights at the student union, of course, though we used to go downmarket to the poly on account we thought the women were more attractive there (I'm not sure they were, but for the same reason we'd always go the humanities library**, better scenery***) and also that they'd be more liberal with their attentions (in my experience, no).
I think my most recent clubbing experience landed us in a former-bank basement in Philadelphia (the place we were supposed to go was closing, so this was Uber-driver roulette) a few years back. We only got in because my colleague loudly and poshly declared 'but we're British!' (you have to have ID, it's the US of course). I think we were twenty years older than every other customer. We were drunk enough for it to be fun. It was mostly an interesting anthropological experience that I'm not keen to repeat.
*well, many people seem to get married with less in common.
**children, ask your parents. A large building with books in it. Actual books.
***sorry, but this is how men of a certain age (anywhere between 11 and 85) think. Women, I suspect, too.