Latest Press - THE BENNY LYNCH STORY

                                  

Thanks to George Mair for the following images and for joining us at Cathkin and Morrison's Gym for the shoot of our first Trailer which you can view here. We owe a massive debt of thanks to

the Jimmy Johnston Academy for allowing us the use of their pavilion building at Cathkin Park last Sunday to set up, make up and relax in between takes and they were brilliant hosts and our cast and crew were very impressed with the memorabilia on show there & the whole set-up.

With Benny Lynch having fought 5 times at Cathkin in the 1930s and indeed regularly training there with his coach and mentor Sammy Wilson, filming at the ground gave the film an authenticity and historical background to the story behind Scotland's Greatest Ever Boxer. And our sincere thanks to Christine and Alex at Morrison's Gym for their hospitality, humour and support of our film and we

loved shooting the 'ring' scenes at the gym. This is the first in a series of trailers and there are still tickets left for each of the 14 venues on our tour in 2019 and you can find all of the Venues and Dates at our website thebennylynchstory.co.uk

Restoration - Week 38

Spent this week levelling and clearing the East running track and making a start on the other side of the surrounding pitch wall and as you can see it is already paying off. By the end of March we should have a full section of track restored and all of the pitch wall cleaned up along this East section of

the old ground. Again we are focusing on this end of the stadium as it still requires the most work and is the most 'at risk' part of Cathkin Park. Even an ancient ruin requires maintenance in order to preserve it for the future and this section of terracing, wall and track will occupy our efforts for the

next year, whilst we try and generally clear up the rest of the park and raise funds and interest in rebuilding a decent brick pavilion building pitchside and hopefully enclosing the pitch at some point to stop vandalism to the playing surface. But very pleased with how much we are getting done with this lovely mild weather! Also nice to chat to MSP James Kelly at the ground this month and to

discuss our work so far and future ideas for the ground in future.and thanks to Kenneth Watt for the photo here. Also took a trip to BBC Radio Scotland with Stephen Purdon to chat about about our CPL tour of thebennylynchstory.co.uk in May & June 2019 and thanks to OFF THE BALL presenters Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove for having us on. Photo courtesy of BBC Scotland below. You can

listen back here : OFF THE BALL and a massive thanks to George Mair for his nationwide press coverage this Sunday in The Sunday Mail, Mail On Sunday, Scottish Sun, Sunday Express and Sunday Post for our tour. We shot a trailer for the show at Cathkin Park last Sunday and thanks to George for the photo below.

So another busy old week at the ground and hopefully we will sell all of the seats for the tour and generate some funds for the continued restoration work of this wonderful old ghost stadium...

Restoration - Week 37

Weather been Hellish of late but still managed another 2 weeks of graft at Cathkin. Horrible, dirty and unglamorous work but necessary and every day a little improvement is evident. With the ground frozen hard we turned again to cleaning the concrete pitch wall, cleaning and scrubbing down years 

of growth but it is restoring well, but still too cold and wet to start repainting. We moved 100 buckets of earth this week from the terracing and running track and the work to level this important aspect of the stadium has been tough-going! Tyre marks, ruts and moss have ruined the top layer, rendering it

unsafe to run on and thus the ground has lost a valuable asset. We are cutting it down 2 inches all round the pitch and defining the borders which should enable the pitch to dry out better as the water will run into the lower level of the track, as it used to be.

We have cleared 70 feet of this track now but with the frost it has been the stuff of nightmares this last 10 days. As the photos here show the track below is in firmer condition which we are packing hard and will then resurface with fresh blaes in the summer months.

The trees are now all bare of leaves and this is my favourite time of year to work at the park as you can clearly see exactly what remains of the terracing and can get a real feel for how the ground once looked. Also this week we were sent some amazing press reports and sketches of how the stadium

looked when Alloa Athletic were the first team to grace New Cathkin Park when Thirds took over the ground in 1903. Every week another little bit of this old ground's amazing history pops up and we are condensing all of this information into a souvenir book which is being written up at the moment.