The Second Hampden – New Cathkin Park

Glasgow has three major football stadiums at Ibrox, Parkhead and Hampden, but the ground that carries the greatest mystique, and creates more nostalgia among football fans in the city, is New Cathkin Park, the site of the Second Hampden Park and between 1904 and 1967, home to the former Scottish League club Third Lanark, one of the founder clubs of the Scottish Football Association.

As this video made by Abandoned Scotland illustrates, Cathkin Park is now part of Glasgow’s sporting archaeology, a hidden gem of Scotland’s sporting past. It’s historic significance resides not only in being the site of the second Hampden Park between 1884 and 1903, but also its connection to Third Lanark FC, whose 95 year existence ended with liquidation in 1967. The club, named after the Third Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers who were based in the Strathbungo area of Glasgow’s south side, has been rekindled by a small group of enthusiasts who reformed an amateur club in 2007, with the aim to restore Cathkin Park as a venue for professional football.

The video shows the remnants of some of the terracing which survives on one side of the ground. The pitch itself remains a public park maintained by Glasgow City Council for playing football, and for those who play there, the eery sense of professional football previously being played in front of thousands of spectators must make the hair stand up on the back of the neck.

Evidence of Third Lanark in action is now available on YouTube with highlights of a Scottish League match from November 1962 against Hearts.

The footage provides evidence of the now demolished stadium, with large areas of the terracing left empty, particularly on the uncovered terracing behind the goals. Nevertheless, a few thousand spectators are in attendance, which we can ascertain from the occasional roar from the main stand where the cameras are located. The winter had clearly closed in, with evidence of snow around the ground, but the surface seems playable, even if the standard of football being played on it leaves something to be desired – with plenty of long, high balls and little evidence of flowing passing movements.

Other things worthy of note are adverts around the ground: Players Cigarettes, Aitkins Beer, Coca Cola and Condor Sliced tobacco among the most prominent. Tobacco advertisements around sport had a long tradition, with football cigarette cards gaining a widespread popularity from the turn of the 20th Century. In the 1960’s as televised football became more commonplace, the visibility of perimeter advertisements became increasingly problematic for the BBC which did not like any association with commerce. In 1965, the government introduced a ban on cigarette advertisements on television as part of a wider health campaign to prevent young people from taking up smoking. Ironically, one effect of the ban was increased advertising and sponsorship of sport by the large tobacco companies. This was particularly evident in motor sports, as well as cricket. Sadly, the money that flowed from both television rights and tobacco sponsorship in the late 1960s came too late to save the financial peril of Third Lanark.

Cathkin Park is an architectural remnant of a previous age of football stadia in Scotland. It is one of the oldest surviving football terraces in the world, and arguably needs conserving for future generations as a special site of sporting heritage.

Lost Sporting Places: White City Stadium, Glasgow

White City Stadium was a major sporting facility located near to Bellahouston Park on the North side of Paisley Road and east of Helen Street, not far from Ibrox Stadium, home of Rangers. The stadium closed for speedway in 1968 and was later demolished in 1972 to make way for the M8 motorway and subsequently the large police station at Govan. The Stadium was predominantly used for greyhound racing and speedway, although the surviving evidence on film also reveals other uses, such as show jumping. Built in 1928 the grandstand stood on the south side adjacent to Paisley Road, with terracing all round the stadium. In the immediate postwar period the stadium was run by the Hoskins family from Australia. They reintroduced a speedway team in 1946 and Ian Hoskins named them the Glasgow Tigers, which he thought had a nice ring to it! The team wore red and white striped leathers, the idea taken from Sunderland, the team he had supported as a boy. Initially the Tigers had to compete all over the UK, Hoskins recounting in his memoir ‘The Birth of the Glasgow Tigers‘ the fact that he travelled 24,000 miles by the end of the first season in 1946. Speedway and greyhound racing thrived in Scotland for the first half of the 1950s, and Hoskins’ penchant for showmanship – his trademark of setting fire of his hat being one of his more dangerous stunts – attracted relatively large average crowds of 13,000. The stadium hosted international speedway competitions, and for a while created a number of local celebrities including Tommy Miller, known as ‘Atomic Tommy’ and the Australian rider Junior Bainbridge. In the 1960’s home grown talent Jim McMillan from Bearsden followed in the footsteps of his two uncles, the Templeton brothers, and wowed local fans going on to represent Scotland and the British Lions.  But the stadium always faced financial problems, chastened by the introduction of a 45% Entertainment Tax by the post-war Labour government, they were forced to diversify the use of the stadium including show jumping, which is captured in a Pathe Newsreel from 1947.

FILM LINK: British Pathe ‘Around Scotland (1947)

The film shows several sequences of horses going over jumps in front of a full main grandstand at White City Stadium. The commentator remarks how this is a new venture, set to become an annual event, with patronage from Lord Inverclyde, a descendant of  Sir George Burns owner of the Cunard Line.

The film also reveals the landmark Totalisator boards (above) used by the greyhound bookmakers, which also showed the results from the speedway. By the late sixties the stadium was in disrepair, and the Tigers moved to Hampden Park, with the final greyhound race in 1972 before the bulldozers moved in to make way for the motorway.

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Bowls in Glasgow’s Southside

Bowls is known to have been played in Glasgow since the 17th Century, and the Thomas Taylor Company, formed in 1770, is the world’s oldest bowls manufacturer. As Ged O’Brian in Played in Glasgow makes clear, the Glasgow public turned its public spaces conserved by its Victorian aldermen in to new sporting facilities from which new sports practices and sports clubs could emerge. This was particularly the case with bowls, which flourished in the south side of the city as its new (increasingly middle-class) population grew through the late-19th in to the early 20th centuries extending the city southward in to Pollokshields, Cathcart, Mount Florida, Shawlands and Langside. The popularity of bowls, Ged Obrien notes, became so great that by 1929 there were 33 private and 11 public greens within a 1.25 mile radius.

FILM LINK: ‘A Games of Bowls’ (1939), Scottish Screen Archive

A rare amateur colour film from 1939 shows a number of bowling matches at Glasgow bowling greens. The first, Whitevale, is one of the oldest bowling clubs in the world, formed in 1836 in the Dennistoun area of the city and now situated in Whitehill Street (seen in this postcard at theglasgowstory.com). The film provides an insight in to the demographic of participants, predominantly elderly men and women, their attire, the style of bowls being played, all amid the tightly enclosed environ of the bowling green which is situated amongst the high tenements of the Denistoun area. According to O’Brien, the club was famous for having lawyers, policemen and doctors among its membership.

One fascinating feature of the film is the lack of any strict dress code, no ‘whites’ for example, but the men are mainly wearing jackets and ties, common for the age, but looking quite informal at the same time. However one member can be seen wearing plus-fours, which was common sports attire in the late-19th century and Edwardian period, but revealing middle-class eccentricity for the 1930s. The other interesting detail of the film is the way in which the bowlers chase after their bowl, literally at a near-sprint to get up close to the final ‘head’ of bowls at the other end of the rink.

The second sequence, in black and white, shows a match at Kingswood bowling green located in Kingsbrae Avenue adjacent to Hampden Stadium, which was a relatively new club in 1939, having been established in 1928. The film shows women playing bowls who are wearing long summer dresses and hats, are more genteel, and are also shown holding plates of food, presumably prepared for the men of the club. The film shows that women had a place in bowling clubs, which gave them access to recreation and competition. At the same time, the film also reveals heavily gendered roles in such clubs,with women preparing the food and enabling men to occupy themselves in play. These gendered roles continue when the film shows a sequence where play stops for ‘ices’, an alternative to a drink’s break in the hot June sunshine. Visible in the background is Hampden itself. The film also shows the club house, typical of many Glasgow bowling pavilions, long and narrow, which is surrounded by a rockery and formal flower beds to enhance the feeling of being lost on a green urban space.

FILM LINK: British Pathe Newsreel – Seen in Camera (1946)

The newsreel series, Seen in Camera, visits Glasgow to cover the women’s international bowls match for the Eve Trophy between England and Scotland at Bellahouston Bowling Club. Bellahouston Bowling Club was originally located on Paisley Road from 1858. The construction of Glasgow Subway meant it had to move from Clifford Street in 1893. As the description by theglasgowstory.com of a postcard held by the Mitchell Library explains ‘the section which passed beneath the greens was built by “cut and cover”, which involved excavating two deep trenches across the site and then covering over the tunnels formed below’. The new green bounded by Beech Avenue and Manor Road is captured in the British Pathe newsreel.

The post-war newsreel contrasts with the pre-war home movies from Whitevale and Kingswood with all competitors wearing more formal whites. Given the status of the match there is a relatively large crowd, with women seated and men standing behind. In contradistinction to the more informal matchplay in the Kingswood film above, the formal setting of the championships at Bellahouston reveal the respect for women’s bowls, the prestige of the event being the draw for the Pathe cameras. However, the jovial entertainment-driven approach of the newsreel removes any sense of gravitas in the event; we even get sexist references to ‘dumb blondes’ and ‘bowling queens’. Nevertheless, the film is valuable for providing some footage of the beautiful Bellahouston pavilion, the second to be built by the club, which again had to give way to new transport links when it was unfortunately demolished in the early 1980’s during the construction of the M8 motorway. The club moved for a third time to its existing location in the north east corner of Bellahouston Park, just along from House For an Art Lover.

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Curling at Shawmoss near Crossmyloof

Ordnance Survey 1899 (NLS)

One of the themes of From the Sporting Past to Future Wellbeing is to explore the lost and hidden places of sport in the south side of Glasgow. Our urban and suburban environments are constantly changing and places of sport are no different. One reason for investigating such places is to understand how a place changes over time, and how the community’s sporting practices have shaped the environment. It may also help us identify why certain sporting practices and places disappear as the urban environment is transformed for other uses.

Lilybank Curling Ponds were located off Shawmoss Road just along from Crossmyloof railway station, and across the road from Hutchesontown Gardens, an area of allotments and ornamental gardens including a bandstand (This area was built on for residential use in the 1960s and is generally known as Crossmyloof Gardens. The ponds were purpose built to allow a shallow pool of water to freeze in winter, ultimately creating a flat surface for curling.

Lilybank Curling Club was formed in 1865 and the first reference to the clubs activities survives in The Scotsman from 4 December 1869. The Herald (7 January 1879) provides the first mention of a ‘pond at Crossmyloof’, where £5 was collected in a match for the Unemployment Fund. The curling pond appears on a Post Office map for the first time in 1895 and appears for the last time on an Ordnance Survey map of 1910.

As this contemporary view of Shawmoss shows the whole area became residential, made up of semi-detached and detached villas and bungalows. Most of the houses were built just before the Second World War in the late-1930s. The ponds were located where Springkell Avenue meets Shawmoss Road.

A postcard of the Crossmyloof curling pond from 1904.

This image of the curling ponds and curlers featured on a postcard from 1904. Judging by the number of people on the ice, the sport was clearly a popular pastime in the Crossmyloof and Pollokshields area. The brooms being used to direct and alter the speed of the stones are also noteworthy and predate the more modern brushes used today.

Although evidence from the Ordnance Survey map of 1936 does not show the pond, there is a film in the British Pathe archives, which shows a curling match from 1933 on a pond that could well be that of the Lilybank Curling Club at Shawmoss. Pathe do not provide specific details of where the film was shot, but there is clear evidence of a train passing by on an embankment to the left of the shot, which could be the Cathcart Circle built in 1886. The buildings seen beyond the far end of the pond could be those of Shawmoss farm. If this isn’t the pond near Crossmyloof, the curling taking place at Lilybank would have looked very similar.

The short film (1min: 27secs) has the title ‘If Winter Comes – Certainly not – Winter has come!’ and begins with the caption ‘Curlers – the game in which all men are equal – from Duke to dustman – when once on the ice – are happy!’

The film clearly shows three curling sheets (the playing surface) as shown on the maps, and a group of men, a couple of them wearing ‘Plus-fours’, and one women playing together. There are several sequences of play, with evidence of the wooden ‘hack’ from where the curlers launch their stones sweeping and targets are brushed aside.

Curling has been played in Scotland since the 16th Century, and was exported to new parts of the world, such as Canada where it is most popular, by Scots who traded with and in some cases emigrated to North America.

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Keeping Fit in Wartime Scotland

© National Library of Scotland. Licensor http://www.scran.ac.uk.

Scotland’s sports heritage is not only located in places, but also our visual culture. Scottish Screen Archive have a variety of holdings on sport, including this gem from 1942, a promotional feature ‘4 and 20 Fit Girls’. The idea of fitness for war has a long history, but during the Second World War the role of women working in munitions factories and other forms of manual labour meant the Government wanted to maintain a fit female workforce.

The allocation of women to the war effort was a direct consequence of the reservation and conscription of men in to the armed forces. The exercises in this instructional film combine exercise and dance movements pioneered in the 1920s and 1930s by Mary Stack and her daughter Prunella Stack who set up the Women’s League of Health and Beauty in 1930. Dubbed ‘the perfect women’, Stack’s philosophy that ‘Movement is Life’ was developed in her youth while growing up in India where she noted a difference in the body shape of local Indian women who practiced yoga, and the leisured class of British Imperialists.

Her ideas quickly spread throughout the latter half of the 1930s as concerns over public health peaked during a period of austerity. Oral history research by Eilidh Macrae in Glasgow has revealed women from the 1930s onward found the seemingly regimented ‘keep fit’ classes developed by the Stack’s allowed them to ‘build friendships, escape their everyday lives, have fun, and of course, enhance their health and general wellbeing.’

As the film shows the group exercises are not only meant to be a hard work out, but also sociable and fun. The film itself tries to capture the gracefulness of the women’s movement. The positioning of the camera from above the gym captures the wheel-like patterns of groups of women as they turn in harmony, or as the women line up in pairs and twist and bend the impression is much like a mirror, and finally, as the camera focuses in along a vista of legs lined up along the gym, the narrator liken the scene to a set of ‘piano keys’. Throughout the film, the the dance-like moves accentuate the feminine nature of this form of exercise, which would have contrasted heavily with the popular sports and exercise of men.

There was, though, a more functional, ideological undertone to films of this nature. If, as the title suggests, this is a ‘dainty dish to set before the King’, it is of athletic women getting fit for the tough, austere times of war. In the post-war period women were increasingly displaced from industrial labour in factories back in to the home as men returned from war. But the fitness movement continued and a subsequent film ‘Fitness for Women‘ made in 1953 by the National Fitness Council for Scotland was clearly aimed at the aspirational ‘smart young girl of twenty to twenty five’. The film focuses on the ideal normative female body, with good posture and firm muscles. There is also a lingering discourse of victorian middle-class values of appropriate leisure activity running through the film, which again reflects the emergent ‘white collar’ aspirational values of the time.

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