Restoration - Week 5

Braving 'The Beast From The East' snow we still managed to clear another large section of terracing from the SW Corner and cleaned another 5 feet of pitch wall and another 13 terraces of moss and growth this week. Despite this being clearly the best-preserved section of the old stadium, it is also one of the worst when it comes to cleaning up as it has been covered with a thick carpet of moss

underneath a few years worth of fallen branches and leaves and general rubbish and this has been a particularly hard week of digging so far! But as you can see from these latest pictures, the effort has been worth it. Progress in this section can now clearly be seen from the pitch and Old Hampden is once again emerging from the shadows. Once the weather clears up we will also start working

on the overgrown running track and helping to drain the excess water away from the playing surface as currently it is pooling on this track and the ground is uneven and not good for the ankles! Once that is complete we plan to start repainting the scrubbed down pitch wall after each section is completed and remove the dead trees and overhanging branches that have restricted the view from this section of the terracing, ensuring a clearer view of the full playing area for supporters and visitors alike.

So far we have cleaned 25 feet of the pitch wall and even through the blanket of snow the recent work has improved the look of the ground and inspired us to crack on with the work and restore as much of the surviving terracing as we can over the next 18 months.

New Video Update!

Thanks to Ohio-based Eddie McCarroll for shooting this video last week on his visit back home to Cathkin Park. You can watch our latest work on the SW Corner Terracing here:

https://www.facebook.com/eddie.mccarroll.14/videos/g.280111635468541/10214327068078126/?type=2&theater&ifg=1

There has already been a nice reaction to this online and had more offers of help from locals since it was posted. Also had a great chat with Jimmy Simmonette from the JJFA and they have enlisted the Council's help in getting more of the terracing cleaned up in future weeks. Cathkin Park Ltd and the JJFA will be working alongside each other to really improve the entire site from now on and we very much appreciate the help.

And a huge thanks to Jimmy for donating one of their Club jerseys to our cause as well as the loan of some more much-needed tools! There is still a huge job ahead of us but it's a real step forward in our efforts to have the help and support of the resident Club at the park and more support from the local community who see the little improvements every day and have all been very kind thus far.

Restoration - Week 4

Another good 10 hours of graft to shift years of muck and growth from this SW corner terracing and very pleased with the results thus far. Now we have cleared all 54 terracing steps in this first section of restoration and cleaned 21 of them with wire brushes (see photo below).

Also cleaned 17 feet of the inside of the original pitch wall in this section and trimmed back some of the larger branches that have overhung this patch of terracing. There are 7 dead trees around this section and our intention is to first coppice and then fully remove all of these, thus clearing more sight lines of each corner of the pitch, which are currently hidden by brush at the moment.

Some lovely feedback from the local community regarding our work this week again and even had tools donated today! 4 more bags of rubbish also collected this week and picked up by the Council. What do do with the piles of mud and moss cleared from this section had become a problem until we decided to reinstate the former earth embankment first put in by Queens Park FC in 1884. Although this was originally further North in the old Hampden Park, we are now rebuilding it with soil from

the cleared terracing in this section above, marked out on monday before we began adding the soil. This area is currently a muddy bog and an earthen mound will both enclose the ground and draw up a lot of this resting water away from the running track and the pitch, helping with drainage and to improve this north side of the playing surface.

From a small mound this is now building up nicely and our eventual aim is to add to this until it is a fully formed earth bank, which we will grass over in the short term. Once the earth, twigs etc have compacted and dried out, we aim to rebuild a new section of Victorian-style terracing on top of this solid foundation in keeping with our eventual vision for Cathkin Park.

So hopefully we will be able to get this up to a decent height over the next 4 weeks and extend it along the old site of Third Lanark's main stand. Locals may be a bit concerned at this pile of unsightly compost, but if given time this will vastly improve the appearance and atmosphere inside the old ground during matches as well as drying out the much maligned football pitch.

We have also marked out a new pathway for the Jimmy Johnstone Academy to use to erect their goalposts and will add red blaes to this and dry out this pathway next week. We have also started removing the 'Squatter's Den' which had appeared on the south enclosure pitch-side and will re-use the tarpaulins on our new 'Spion Kop' terracing.

In addition we are in discussions with a timber company in England to recreate the original QPFC Pavilion which stood on 1st Hampden across the road from Cathkin. The cost is around £8500 but I think our dear readers would agree that it would be a suitable replacement for the old Thirds pavilion which was pulled down in the 1970s?

We also are costing the erection of a pitch-side picket fence, again in keeping with our vision for an original Victorian football ground, run by a wood-burning heating and lighting system which will allow us to utilise all of the wood from the felled trees around the stadium. The 'new' pavilion will include two dry changing rooms, a small Referee's room and office for the management of the ground and to eventually use as our full-time base. We aim to continue our new earthworks all along this North side of the ground, leaving room only for our new pavilion, with two access points for Council groundsmen, rubbish collection and access from the existing JJFA pavilion to the pitch for their players and staff, as well as keeping the ground open to the general public for their continued use as a public park.

And finally this week we have begun clearing the next section of this SW corner terracing and a MASSIVE task ahead to clear this and all of the other remaining terracing sections at Cathkin. Not bad going however for our little company so far and amazed at how different this part of the ground already looks after just 4 week's work.

Restoration - Week 3

Another manky week of weather and hard graft on the terraces of the old ground but delighted with the progress we have made this week. We have now removed all the moss and dirt and plants from 16 rows of terracing in this South-West corner terrace section and and polished each step, thus hopefully saving this terracing for another few years.Quite amazed at the results seen below as the past quite

literally reappears from the grime of 50 years of neglect as nature has taken over where once thousands of feet once stood shivering in the cold watching the great Celtic, Rangers, Kilmarnock, Dundee United, Hibernian and Hearts teams of the past take on Third Lanark.

Obviously there is still a huge task in front of us, but we are spurred on by the great reaction we have had from park users and the local community who can now once again stroll down the old terracing and for joggers to train 'old-skool' by sprinting up and down the cleared steps, as I have witnessed twice already this week! It is quite easy to visualise now how the ground will look once we have

restored all 5 surviving terrace sections and removed the trees which currently block the view of the pitch and are destroying the fabric of this terracing. A Herculean Effort still required but after 3 weeks of solid work the results are tangible at last. A month ago I stood on this pitch horrified

at the state of the ground, overgrown and unusable with our sporting past literally disappearing before my eyes. I started a partial restoration eight years ago and in that time it has gotten steadily worse.
The Council have kept the pitch in good order and the JJFA have transformed the Pavilion in the car park into a brilliant changing area and base for their club but the terraces and surrounding park has

become even more derelict than I remember, so it was then that I decided once again to start a thorough and complete restoration of Old Hampden Park and turn it back into a proper Victorian sporting stadium. My intention is to fix this old lady of football back into the only working completely Victorian football ground in the world, thus attracting more visitors and ensuring the ground is still there for future generations to come and wonder at. Cathkin Park Limited was set-up specifically to generate funds that will be ploughed into doing the work required over the next three years. We will be starting a Heritage Trail, covering New Cathkin/Old Hampden as part of that.We have also now made a start on clearing the surrounding pitch wall and as the photo above testifies, it has already made an impact. Onwards!

Restoration - Week 2

Again plagued by bad weather this week but cracked on with the restoration work. Managed to scrape and wire brush 13 terrace steps and clear all of the steps leading down to the pitch wall. Visibly improved the look of the old ground already and hopefully now saving this section of stonework for another few years yet. It's hard, dirty, time-consuming labour but the results are worth the huge effort we are putting in this month. As we clear more moss and dirt away from each terrace we are finding

that the neighbouring tree roots are undermining large sections of this 1947 concrete and we are now determined that these trees must be removed or we are in serious danger of losing what remains of the original New Cathkin Park structures. Again, this will be a mammoth task, but we had a visit this week from a tree surgeon who is keen to take on the project this summer. Ideally we would like the
ground returned to the early 1980s look featured below, from a photograph copied from the book

'Lost League Football Grounds' by Michael Heatley & Drew Heatley ISBN 978-0-7110-3475-4, which details the removed terrace sections and the planting of the nursery. We aim to grass over these sections until funds become available to rebuild the missing terracing from the 1947 plans. But for now it is vital that the stone terracing and steps and pitch wall areas are cleared of 50 years of neglect and we hope you will agree that already we have improved the look of one small corner of this

 famous old lady of the Scottish game! 2 wire brushes and a shovel already worn out in only two weeks of restoration graft though and another 2 bags of rubbish cleared up today and sad to see how much garbage still remains. We hope that by clearing up and restoring the ground that users will become a little more courteous with their waste than at present. And if you plan to visit the site please be careful when treading on the moss-covered terraces as they are treacherous...I have had 3 falls there already this week! So the sooner we get a safe standing & viewing area at Cathkin Park, the better, hence our urgency and work rate to clear this South West corner section at the moment.

The Restoration Begins...

Despite the huge job ahead of us, inclement weather & yet another tree blown down and resting on the pitch, we got stuck in to the restoration of the stone work on the West Corner Terracing and set about removing 50 years worth of overgrown moss, dirt and rubbish from this, probably the best surviving section of the 1947 terracing still present at the park. Tough work but we slowly got

through it, clearing tiny sections at a time with a small blade and wire brush. We are determined to do this correctly and ours is a very gentle restoration and preservation of the stone underneath and we are assessing the underlying damage being done by tree roots that surround each of the 5 surviving

terraces. Ultimately the task will be to coppice and then remove all of these trees and rebuild the terracing all the way around the ground. However, our plan would include simply grassing over the missing terraces and maintaining the overall look of this old sporting amphitheatre, whilst leaving the trees surrounding the park's exterior intact and keep Cathkin as picturesque as possible. And so after Week 1 of our frankly exhausting work, we have restored our first section of terraces and are working

hard to clear the steps leading down to the pitch wall which are hazardous at the moment and really unsafe to walk on. Had really nice support from the local dog walkers and residents so far about the difference we are making and have cleared 6 bags of rubbish from this patch of the ground alone!

Comparing the two photos above demonstrates how far we have to go but highlights the difference we have managed to make already, despite the snow, ice and rain! And already the past is emerging from the thick moss and Old Hampden is slowly but surely coming back to life...

January 2018

This is simply THE most important football ground in Scotland, if not the world. It's past, present and future simply must be protected and Cathkin Park Ltd. is a company set up to ensure that. But the years have not been kind to Cathkin and this former International football arena is in grave danger of crumbling away to nothing beneath moss, dirt, weeds and overgrown trees as it is now a public park.

Glasgow City Council have owned and cared for the site since former club Third Lanark AC went out of business in 1967, the ground having been sold to a builder who found he could not build on this protected area. In the 1980s a tree nursery was put in place and most of the terracing removed and destroyed. This project was abandoned in the 1990s and now the remaining trees are overgrown and the roots are destroying the concrete underneath the existing 5 sections of terracing. The photo above was taken the season after this terracing was put in place during the close season and our aim is to restore it to this condition once again for sports fans to once again be able to enjoy this park in safety and far more comfort than is possible at the moment. The photo below shows the dilapidated state of

this same section of the ground, formerly the Enclosure, opposite the main stand and pavilion, which is also long gone, a fire having destroyed in in the early 1970s, set by vandals as the ground lay unused and forgotten in this corner of the southside of Glasgow. However this park is still used as an amateur football pitch and we are delighted that the game still goes on on this hallowed turf and full credit to the Council and the clubs such as Glencastle Sparta AFC, Third Lanark AFC, Hampden FC and the Jimmy Johnstyon Football Academy who have kept the game alive and kicking on this pitch. We at CPL are not affiliated to any team, we are simply concerned with saving the remaining terracing and returning it to it's former glory. Cathkin Park is potentially a World Heritage Site and we are already working hard to protect and preserve all of this original stone work. We aim to bring tourists to this site and others all over the City of Glasgow in coming months and are working on making a safe standing and walking space in each of the 5 remaining 1946/47 terracing areas.