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!