Restoration - Week 28

Another solid week's work done at the old ground and making progress in the East End Terrace. A great feeling reaching the edges of the terracing and digging down to uncover more decent stonework and the original ash infill. 50 years overgrowth removed and will clear the rest of this area this month

and soon have a full 1/3 section of the East Terracing restored.The wet weather has made it easier to shift another 100 buckets of muck from the terracing and running track, with another couple of feet now levelled and compacted again.

Delighted with the results of the work this week and battled through the elements to remove more moss, weeds and rubbish from these steps and filled with more red blaes. Thanks also to whoever left me an extra shovel hidden in the terracing! Much appreciated!

Also removed lots of the winter cut branches and added tonnes of earth to the dump site in the old car park, which we will re-use somewhere in the ground in the future as we are making this as 'green' a project as we possibly can and are recycling everything we find, even the WW2 spoil.

But as you can see from this week's photos, we are really transforming this part of Cathkin Park every single week and racked up hundreds of hours of graft in 2018. Noticed also that the 3rd LRV mural was in a bad state of neglect and started clearing this area too.

It had become badly overgrown and starting to disappear so I cut back the grass, removed the moss and cleared the much out from between the metal. This is an important visual reminder of the old club and actually is based on a tile mural which used to exist inside the Pavilion and put up by

the Council at the request of Bob Laird and as such also needs cleaned and restored to it's former glory. Thanks also to Jim Simonette for lining out the new cricket pitch area behind the car park where we plan on installing nets in time for next season, summer 2019.

So, another good week of restoration work at the old ground. Much to do but another little improvement all round despite the regrowth of the bloody weeds!

Restoration - Week 27

The rain this week actually made the work a bit easier and loosened up the heaps of soil from the track and the EAST Terracing, shifting another 50+ buckets of earth this week from this area alone.

Repositioned another broken terrace step this week, scraped and cleaned and in-filled with red ash. Slow going again but very satisfied with the result, despite daily weeding needed! Lots more moss removed from the pitch wall too this week and another 5 feet of the original exposed.

Thanks also the the Council guys for donating more heavy duty bin bags as we cleared up the entire terracing this week, filling two bags ready for uplift.

10 hours graft put in this week and although there is much to do we are making progress as these photos show and will not be giving up any time soon! The ground has been left to rot over the years and is far too precious to be left in it's current state. Despite lots of noise from certain quarters, they have done nothing to save the crumbling terracing or the park in general.

We on the other hand, ARE doing ALL this work and will not accept others claiming otherwise. Two of my own ancestors played regularly here from 1895 - 1920 and I'm doing this in honour of them and all the other remarkable sportsmen who once performed in this magical arena. We are NOT affiliated to ANY football team. This park and it's heritage needs saved, pure and simple.Onwards!

Restoration - Week 26

We welcomed visitors from England on 'groundhopping' duties again this week, all of whom were impressed with the change in the place from the photographs they had seen of the ground over the past decade, which was nice to hear. So despite a lot of nonsense this week on Facebook from a certain individual, we pressed on regardless and got another small section of the terracing done.

Cleared lots more terracing of growth and chopped out more large roots and re-aligned another kerbstone this week, still surprised by how much of this largely ignored terracing section is still in situ! Cleaned and polished another 1/3 terrace in this East End of the ground and again filled in

with red ash. And again, the kerbstones are in remarkably good condition once you wire brush all of the thick and damaging moss. This part of the ground is really now emerging from the wilderness.
We removed bundles of branches this week as well and removed 80 buckets of debris from this

terracing and the running track alone. Not to be credited with this work has been galling to say the least, especially as yesterday was my 108th day this year grafting at the park! Instead our critic suggests that the Community Payback Team have done all the work! They have helped yes with basic scraping of 2 terraces and the tennis court area, but ALL of the work is ours. Thankfully we have

carefully documented every single day's work and photographed as we went along but this criticism still rankles. As I have stated before, we are an independent Limited Company, not attached nor affiliated to any football club and our aim is to preserve the remaining terracing and track and pitch wall for the future.

29 feet of the track is now cleared and levelled and another 12 feet of the pitch wall cleaned, brushed and prepared for repainting. So another tough week's work but pleased with the results. Thanks for all the support on Twitter folks. It has inspired us to carry on regardless.

Restoration - Week 25

Rain at last! But back to clearing more of the running track this week, made easier by the moisture loosening up the impacted earth and again got lot's done this week, but heavy work as was mostly all digging and soil removal as we battled back along the overgrown terraces, removing some large and deep roots again, but cleared another large section.

The track has been useless for many years and it is heavy work levelling it out a couple of feet at a time but a large 20 x 10 foot section cleared this week and aiming to get the East track completed by the end of August 2018. Removing the tree stumps is proving difficult however!

But we are uncovering more of the pitch wall and cleaning that of moss as we go along in readiness for repainting white in coming weeks, but needing to repair the many breaks before we do so. We are doing this slowly and properly and despite accusations online elsewhere we ARE making progress!

This week some major weeding was carried out as well, returning this EAST TERRACE to it's former state and very pleased with the results of our labour these last few weeks. Over 100 days work now performed at Cathkin since mid-january and the ground is much improved.

Delighted this week to have finally dug out the enormous bushes that were growing wild in this section (above) and a HUGE tree root cut out and the terrace cleared of ash & rubbish & moss. We are inching along at present but have again cleaned and back-filled more steps with red blaes and

re-aligned another kerbstone which had been cracked and lifted by tree roots underneath.  Interesting also to compare this section of the ground to how it was in the background of the photo below, taken in 1904 c/o Charles Duncan, taken in november 1905, not long after the new ground opened up.

The East Terracing was a simple affair with wooden crush barriers erected on a grassed over shallow slope made of compacted earth. In 1946/47 the ground was closed for almost a season and a half as the rebuilding took place of all the terracing, including this very section as seen below as it was

in the 1950s. And in the background of this fab colour shop from our archives of Dave Hilley

taken in the 1960s. So, despite a bit of negativity from certain quarters this month we at CPL are very satisfied with the work we have carried out this week and I think the results speak for themselves!