Restoration - week 21

Again another week of superb weather in Glasgow enabled us to clear much more of the dirt, moss and undergrowth from the East Terracing. Spent almost as much time removing the weeds which have already grown up through the replacement red blaes! The larger tree roots are also taking a lot

longer to cut up but slowly getting there! Hot, dusty work this week though but spurred on by some really supportive messages on Twitter this week and met some great people down at the Park who are right behind what we are trying to achieve here. As the task ahead sometimes looks insurmountable it is really encouraging to hear that the local community are right behind us.

So pressed on with cleaning the kerbstones, digging out tree roots and clearing another 4 sections of this section of the old terracing. These were then back-filled with red blaes as a temporary solution to the masses of destroyed concrete missing between the kerbstones.

Looks great, even if I say so myself! But as you can see from the next picture below we are still miles away from completing this area and plans to have it all done by the end of July have to be shelved for now. Really slow going this week as there were some really tough deep roots to dig out and remove

before the terraces could be cleared, the earth flattened out before the red ash added, once each kerbstone had been brushed clean of moss. But as the photographs show we are making progress and every day a little bit more is saved. I believe that once this East End of Cathkin is revamped then the entire stadium will really come back to life and provide another safe area for visitors and supporters at matches to stand in. This has been a real no-go area for the last 4 years and it has given me much

satisfaction restoring it a little at a time. Am also making inroads into levelling off the running track as seen above, which will clear the pitch wall again ready for restoration and painting. The Community Service team have done a great job of removing the latest weeds from the West Terrace as well this week and the Council have managed to stay on top of emptying the bins and clearing away rubbish from drinkers this week.

Also this week Cathkin Park Limited were invited to the official launch of The Benny Lynch Exhibition at The People's Palace and honoured to be a part of it. We are supporting the #Statue4Benny campaign and have suggested Cathkin Park as a possible site for erecting the

statue as Benny was undefeated in all of his 5 fights at the old ground in the 1930s. MD Simon Weir is pictured above with writer Davie Carswell and World Lightweight Champion Jim Watt MBE at the launch party this week.

Restoration - Week 20

So, here we are now 5 months into our painstaking restoration of 2nd Hampden Park and another week of nice weather and daily work clearing 50 years of neglect! Arrived there to find more mindless vandalism presumably from school kids over the weekend! The drainage tube put in by GCC have been torn up and set alight, using school jotters to ignite the plastic. Not too much

actual damage done but frustrating and unnecessary. One of the things we will definitely put in place on completion is security and have a local firm already lined up to take care of Cathkin Park as part of their slate of projects, which can't come soon enough to be honest. Cleared up another 3 bags of

beer and cider cans and just getting on with it now! No point in complaining, just clean the place up but does add extra hours on to the restoration work that I could do without! Lots of early morning graft this week in between more trips to England for work but received lots of complements and support from the local community and on our @CathkinPark Twitter page, which is very much 

appreciated and really does spur us on to continuing this work. And we are slowly improving more and more of the East Terrace this week as these pics demonstrate (above and below). Really happy with the way these kerbing stones have come up from the wire work and hot,dusty work but well

worth the effort this week. Managed to clear another three sections of the East Terrace but still a mountain of work ahead to turn around this part of the ground before moving on to the next section!

Restoration - Week 19

In between trips up and down to London I still managed to get another 10 hours graft done this week on the Queens Park End of the ground. Lots of heavy duty spadework this week to clear along 5 more full terrace steps in this section and then wire brushed another 2 x 1/3 terraces and filled in with red

blaes. Already having to weed this section I have just finished and such a struggle to stay on top of this during this surprisingly beautiful summer we are having! Not complaining though as it is indeed a very pleasant park to be working away in the sunshine. As you can see from these photos, the

difference is incredible and am still on-track to get most of this terracing section cleared and cleaned by the end of July, weather & work - permitting that is! Also made more inroads into revamping the running track in the East End of Cathkin, hard graft and hellish tree roots here having ruined what was once a decent track. Removed lots of growth, roots and the uneven surface in 8ft x 2ft sections

but as you can see, still a long long way to go before the track is cleared, levelled and the pitch wall repaired and repainted behind it. This is a very much unloved part of the old ground and with another 6 weeks work we reckon it will be once again safe for visitors and park users once again to enjoy.

And having a decent running track will really improve the ground as a facility and I for one can't wait to get charging round the track again! A good week's work & more tangible results...Onwards !

Restoration - Week 18

Again another lovely week of weather in Glasgow and took full advantage, working 2/3 hours every day this week to make serious inroads into the East Terracing/Queens Park End. Dividing this main section into 4 x 15 segments we managed to clear out lots of large tree roots and cleared lots of steps of the thick moss, flowers and weeks. Dirty and difficult work physically this week but very happy

with the eventual result. Averaging 2 x 1/3 terrace steps every day as well as cleaning more of the surrounding pitch wall in readiness for painting next month and as you can see from these latest pics we are making definite, if slow progress! As you can see, the pitch wall has been broken in several

places and we will first repair these parts before any paint is applied but as expected this is now beginning to cost and we are looking at the best ways of raising immediate funds to carry on with the work. But for now we can crack on with the stone cleaning with the equipment we already have, although we are going through wire brushes at an alarming rate!! Can't deny this week has been

tough, tough going and much blood, sweat and the occasional tear (caused by stone chips in the eye!) but the results speak for themselves I reckon. And with this spell of lovely weather it has been quite therapeutic just grafting down at the park and every day we are saving another few feet of history.

Four sections of the remaining 5 original terraces are looking so much better than when we began this work in late January and huge thanks to the Community Service boys for their continued help with the moss scraping and leave collecting from the Third Lanark Terrace/South Enclosure (pictured)

Also made some progress on the running track on this East End of the ground, removing the top layers of moss and gravel to reveal the original black ash surface underneath. This will reduce the track down 6 inches but will be much easier to flatten out and put back into proper use again.

As a runner myself I have injured my ankles several times over the tears on this pitted, uneven and badly maintained track and as the ground is being used more and more of late I am determined to fix this up section by section until it is properly operational again. Chatting to a few ex-Celtic players

this week they recalled training on this very track on endless running sessions as youth players and it is such a wasted resource at the moment. But as the photo above shows, this is another big old job and will be a slow process!

But very pleased with the work done this week and delighted with how well the old concrete terracing has come up with a bit of proper stone cleaning and this will look quite impressive by the end of the summer, before we can finally move on to the SE Corner terrace which is also in a very

sorry state at the moment and in danger of being lost to Nature in coming years, so still a mountain to climb before we can rest and be confident that all of our hard work has actually saved these old steps.