Restoration - Week 32

A cold snap but cracked on with the East Terrace this week and cleared lots more buckets of spoil from this section. Ground frozen hard so unable to work on the running track which has deteriorated again recently, but got another series of terrace steps completely cleared, roots removed and bushes

cut away to clear more of a path through this jungle! Ignoring the weeds for now until we can get a decent amount of weedkiller and letting the leaves carpet the other terraces for now before we sweep and bag them later in November when the trees are finally bare.

Again it has been close work with wire brush and scraper, followed by repacking the earth below before resurfacing with red blaes and nice to see so much of the original stonework coming back to life under 50 years of growth and neglect.

But the photo above demonstrates just how much we still have to do to clear this terrace and how thick the trees and weeds have grown through this area over recent years. But the old ground is now enjoying it's 135th year of existence and we are only 10 full months into it's restoration and already the place feels very different.

Restoration - Week 31

Squeezed in another 10 hours of work this last two weeks due to work commitments and again attacked the EAST terracing once more! The weeds of course have grown back and the leaves now carpet the previously restored sections, but the ground looks suitable autumnal and we will start

clearing these up again next month. For now we are still concentrating on digging out the roots and undergrowth from the old Queens Park End and made progress this week. Cleared and levelled another 2 sections of the terrace and lined with red blaes.

However the original stonework underneath was deeply entrenched in moss and this took hours just to wire brush and clean off, but again am really happy with the final results. Although we are still
missing one long kerbstone here, this can be replaced once we buy the concrete and can begin to

refill the missing stepping. Most important for us is to realign the terrace steps that remain and remove the muck, ash and weeds permanently in order to prepare this section for the concrete. In the meantime however the red ash looks good and this area is now visibly improved from pitch level.

Really satisfied with our progress this year, despite the incremental nature of the work, but this is a 7 year project and we are still only beginning. This East Terrace has been a lot harder than anticipated due to the neglect and vandalism over the years but it is coming back to life and will be returned to full usage in the next year. Thanks for all your support, messages, visits and offers of help as they have inspired me to keep on going!

Cathkin Park - Movie Star!

For the second time this year Cathkin has been home to the Scottish film industry, acting as Unit Base for another production this month. Feature Film BEATS was also based at the park in 2017 and the

old ground has provided the backdrop for dozens of television shows and news items over the decades, including Purple TV's excellent documentary on Third Lanark for BBC Alba in 2016. we shot our entry for the 2012 48 Hour Film Festival 'Cameron Stone' here, even interrupting the game at half-time to shoot scenes!

Perhaps the most famous role the ground has played has been as a filming location for Peter Mullan's NEDS, which had a memorable and hilarious gym class scene set in Cathkin Park. The old stadium in unique in look and atmosphere in Britain and this is just another aspect worth celebrating.

Inspired by it's Hollywood connections, we have also begun shooting documentary footage of our restoration work and charts our progress since January in cleaning up the remaining terracing and the whole ground in general.

So we hope other film companies will continue to use Cathkin in years to come and help continue to build an interest and promotion of the ground. As we have said, there is no place quite like it...

Restoration - Week 30

Managed to make a start on the next area of the EAST Terrace which has almost disappeared under 50 years of growth! The worst part of the ground thus far and the roots have undermined the remaining stepping, but already dug them out this week and revealed more of the concrete below.

Spent hours this week clearing away storm damage with lots of branches down and the old woodpile is certainly building up! 

We reckon this part of the terracing will take the rest of 2018 to dig out, clear and polish up the stonework, before we can fix up the pitch wall and paint it and then move on to the final unrestored section of the ground.

Looking forward to getting tore into this last 3rd of the front terracing and getting it back to looking like a football ground once again. 

But again, slowly but surely the Old Lady Of Scottish Football is returning to life and delighted with how this end of the ground is coming together again. It is a painfully slow process but I think the

results speak for themselves. Cleared up another 2 bags of rubbish and the whole ground has a much better and more cared-for feel to it of late and been great chatting to more tourists this week who had gone out of their way to find Cathkin Park.