Restoration - Week 17

Cathkin was a real mess when I returned this week, with booze bottles and cans littering the terraces and took 4 more bags to clean up the rubbish. If only drinkers were a bit more respectful of the ground but what can you do? There are only two trackside bins which are always full and simply

not enough to cope when there is a crowd down at the park. The summer is always a nightmare anyway for antisocial behaviour and if the Council won't pick up the litter then we bloody well will! Just holds us back on the stone restoration work however and can do without it. But Cathkin has

been a public park for 50 years and has always attracted vandals and drinkers and it will take a long time and a lot of work to transform the ground into something people will be proud of once again and hopefully clear up after themselves. On top of that Nature has returned to try and claim back our

previously cleared terracing and weeds have sprouted everywhere! As a local gardener said to me this week "One year of seeds, 7 years of weeds" so it is a never-ending task to maintain this place! So much easier to clear the place during the winter! But made good progress this week with clearing the

East pitch wall and made a start on restoring the running track as well. We aim to repair the wall and again repaint each section as we go along later this summer. As stated previously we are concentrating on this East Terracing for the rest of the year and every day another little section is revealed from the moss and weeds and preserved for the future. Despite the vandalism over the

years there is still enough of the original terracing to restore and only two pieces actually need recast and the rest cleaned and lifted back into position. We are replacing the missing concrete on the steps with more red blaes from the track in the short term which at least marks out the terracing clearly and looks 100% better than it did a month ago! Really pleased with how this section is beginning to 

shape up. We completed 15 x 1/3 sections of the East End Terrace this week and will move on to the next section next week, hopefully clearing and restoring half of this full terrace by the end of July. But as you can see from these photos the place has really come back to life and some semblance of how this part of Old Hampden used to look in the past? Originally these steps would have been filled with black ash with wooden stepping but the red blaes does really highlight this section as well as

giving park users a safe and comfortable footing once again. We are still cutting out huge tree roots here and so the full section is still not safe to use but what a huge difference in how it was just a few short weeks ago. But it is painfully slow work and hard on the old body but am prouder of this section of our restoration than any of the other (easier) parts of the old ground. And good to see that the

Council lads have nearly cleared the Third Lanark Terrace of moss and this part of the old stadium is looking really good again and far more accessible for locals and fans alike. Slowly, very slowly, but surely, Cathkin Park is emerging from the past yet again and we are determined to continue until we

once again have a ground worth shouting about. It simply has too much of Scotland's sporting history seeped into every corner of the ground to be abandoned and left to rot away. It may be a beautiful ruin but it still needs lots of preservation work just to keep what is still there. It is Scotland's finest sporting amphitheatre, a reminder of our glorious past and a testament to the legends who once

performed here. One day we hope more people will feel the same as we do and Glasgow City Council realize just what a wonderful asset Cathkin Park could be to the Southside of Glasgow. Until that day however we shall plough on with our daily restoration, clearing up the rubbish and posting updates!

Restoration - Week 16

Four months of our restoration work at Old Hampden and making inroads into this EAST Terracing. Really happy with the way the kerb stones now look having wire brushed them and dug out the tree roots between each step this week. Not exactly much fun, but the eventual result is worth the effort!

We have also now found some missing kerb stones which suffered vandalism over the last 50 years and will reset these in the coming weeks, thus outlining the original 1947 pattern of stepping. As I said in previous posts, I am constantly surprised by how much of the original terracing remains buried under mounds of earth and moss and strewn around the wooded areas and wish to use

as much as we can to reshape this section of the park and keep it as original as we can. Cut away more earth and trees this week to uncover 4 more steps and despite the huge regrowth of summer plants and trees recently we are slowly getting there! Only managed to clear a small section of 9 of these terrace steps and filled with red blaes as it is painstaking work and every tiny piece of moss

needs to be cut out and then wire brushed as it grows back instantly! But as these photos show the difference is remarkable. With no power sources nor running water nearby then everything has to be done by hand with basic tools which is in keeping with our ethos of doing this Victorian restoration properly however it is very time-consuming! But we are in no rush and would rather it was done

properly so that it last a bit longer! Good 10 hours of graft done this week before heading off on holiday and very pleased with progress all over the ground this last 4 months, however we now have a huge mound of chopped down trees and branches to get rid of! Will recycle what we can and pulp the rest but for now this is the situation (below) this week! And again the ground has been left

covered in litter and vandalised again, with my wood store being smashed up and bin bags ripped open and the contents emptied again, but undeterred it was all cleared up again and thanks to the GCC boys for taking away another 4 bags of refuse this week. The battle continues to rescue the

old ground from the past and half a century of neglect and slow progress is being made! Now, time for a holiday...

Restoration - Week 15

Lovely weather again so cracked on with cleaning the remaining stonework in the crumbling East Terracing and cleared another 4 bags of rubbish from this section. The park is busy during the summer but with not enough bins around the drinkers leave their bottles and cans strewn around the ground and it is a pain in the arse cleaning up after them. But hey-ho, needs must..

I am concentrating on the East end of Cathkin now for the summer as it needs the most work and is most at risk of being lost forever due to nature's progress and years of vandalism. Once this section has been cleaned up and refilled I will move to the last section of the ground, the much maligned SE corner terrace which has almost disappeared this year!

Very tough going this week but managed to cut away lots of growth and rubbish to clear the first 4 steps and another 4 sections of the long-gone terracing and polished the stone underneath. Already looking far better than before but a MAMMOTH job ahead to get this entire section done in the next 3 months...!

However I'm delighted with the difference already and although only a small part of the terrace is done I have had a great reaction from the local community to the work completed so far. Thanks to Jim Simmonette for the photo below!

But this is slow work, down and dirty with small wire brush, dulled knife, trowel and shovel and small saw to cut away the surviving 'ankle-breaker' tree roots! I am inching my way along the EAST Terrace, which eventually we will rename 'The Queens Park End' in honour of the first tenants from

1884 til 1903. We will rename the former SOUTH Enclosure as 'The Third Lanark Terrace' in memory of their custody of the ground between 1903 and 1967 and the WEST Terrace will become 'The Jimmy Johnston End' in honour of their 9 years here so far. The crush barriers will be repainted to remember each team's colours which will also really bring the old place back to life.

The pitch wall has now had 30 feet of moss cleaned and scraped off and a path once again cut all across this section of terracing and we will repair the crumbling pitch wall and repaint later in the year. This however encourages more vandalism as I found to my cost 8 years ago when I repainted the entire ground, to have it tagged and ruined within 48 hours! (see below photo from 2011)

Determined that this time we will defeat the vandals and return this Grand Old Lady Of Scottish Sporting History to a recognizable arena once again. But as I said before, this is an incredibly slow process and we are making incremental improvements to the remaining structures and have no real end point. This is a true labour of love but am convinced that we can save the ground for future

generations to enjoy. There is simply too much history here in multiple sports for us to sit idly by and watch as it crumbles into nothing. There are dozens of lost grounds in Britain but none had the same heritage as this Second Hampden. For too long it has been neglected and we will not give up on it and have a very clear vision of how Cathkin Park should eventually look, with minimal expense but lots of time and hard graft! And great to have the Community Service lads back this week to help out.

Photograph above is courtesy of actor Colin McCredie on Twitter on his first visit to the ground. So now 4 out of the 5 remaining terraces are being cleared and preserved bit by bit and delighted to have helped transform the look of the ground so much already since January 2018, as this photo below

shows, 'before' and 'after' we cleaned the stonework this week. We are also trying to recycle what materials we can and utilise what is already there, so have in-filled the missing terrace concrete with red blaes from the currently overgrown and unusable running track around the pitch. I repaired the first broken kerbstone below and knocked it back into place before filling with ash and pleased with

the result! This is only a temporary 'fix' until we have cleaned up the whole Queens Park End and then we will re-concrete later in the year. Thanks for all the comments & support and please follow our Twitter account for daily updates and much more about the history of the ground @CathkinPark