Grice's Modified Occam's Razor: "Do you believe in clubs for small children?" "Only when kindness fails."

Speranza

Oddly, 'club-2' derives from 'club-1'!

club -- c. 1200, "thick stick used as a weapon," from Old Norse klubba "cudgel" or a similar Scandinavian source (compare Swedish klubba, Danish klubbe), assimilated from Proto-Germanic *klumbon, related to clump (n.). Old English words for this were sagol, cycgel. Specific sense of "bat used in games" is from mid-15c. 

The club suit in the deck of cards (1560s) bears the correct name (Spanish basto, Italian bastone), but the pattern adopted on English cards is the French trefoil. Compare Danish klőver, Dutch klaver "a club at cards," literally "a clover." 

The social club (1660s) apparently evolved from this word from the verbal sense "gather in a club-like mass" (1620s), then, as a noun, "association of people" (1640s).