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.

Restoration - Week 36 - 1 Year In!!

A year now into our restoration of the ground and thanks again to more clearance work from the Council's team we have all sections of the terracing basically cleaned up!!

As you can see from these photos the ground has not looked as good as this for years and we are delighted with the progress thus far. Been back-breaking work at times but more determined than

ever before to continue this work and get the old place back to proper usage. I reckon the Council's help has saved about a year's work from CPL and although the terracing in the South-East corner

is in very poor condition, it can now be accessed once again and with the trees now bare of leaves the place does really feel like a 'sleeping' old football stadium once more and far better an experience

for those wishing to visit Cathkin Park. Hopefully now we can push on with fundraising to get to the next phase of our work and start replacing some of the missing concrete between the terrace steps.

But for now enjoy the pics and thank you for all the interest, support, comments and 'likes' on our social media pages and for all of the recent press coverage. Much appreciated!

Restoration - Week 35

Back to Cathkin again this week and worked on the East Terracing once again as well as cleaning more of the terrace stonework we managed to get another 5 foot section of the pitch wall cleared of moss and old paint in preparation for repainting this month.

The Council have cleared the leaves from the North End and the ground does really look much improved in this last 11 months of work. Cleaned another 2 x 1/3 sections of terrace steps and filled with blaes and got some weeding done on this same section.

The running track is again looking rough so decided to crack on with levelling and clearing it as well and recycling the top layer to again rebuild our planned 'Spion Kop' on the old stand-side as this will provide a firmer base on which to refashion a rudimentary Victorian terrace in the years to come.

But as you can see it's slow work but does massively improve the track surface and we aim to get most of the 400 yard track levelled and cleared by the end of this year which will make it far safer to run on once again. This is a track that the likes of Willie Maley and Harry McNeill raced on late in the 19th Century and deserves to be restored to a functioning surface again.

Delighted with how the old pitch wall has turned out following a three days of intensive scrubbing! And depending on the weather we will start repainting it in sections as we restore each small part of this East Terrace. We also began to replace the top surface of grass at this end of the ground which

was damaged previously but replaced with stone chip which has prevented the grass from regrowing. There is a broken drain underneath which has allowed the ground to flood at this East corner but the grass should now recover with our mix of turf over the top in all the 'bald' areas. So, almost a year into the restoration we are on track to make further repairs and improvements to the ground in 2019.

Restoration - Week 34

So we are 34 weeks into our restoration work! Work commitments have slowed things down this month but delighted to get stuck back in to the East Terracing again. Moss has already crept over the recently-cleared stonework and weeds re-appeared but we will go back along each terrace and clear it again before the end of this year.

Cleared another 3 sections of tree roots, weeds & earth this week and back-filled 1/3 terrace step with red blaes. Also managed to level out another couple of square foot sections of the running track and removed another dozen buckets of waste from this area. The whole ground is carpeted with leaves

but we will wait until all the trees are bare before sweeping the terracing again. Winter is my favourite time of year to get this work done as the trees devoid of vegetation finally reveals the full atmospheric 'bowl' of the old stadium and shows us exactly what still remains underneath.

We have launched an ambitious plan to start raising funds to replace the missing concrete and eventually replace the old brick pavilion which once stood on the North trackside, with the announcement of our upcoming theatre show THE BENNY LYNCH STORY. We have been developing this idea for 7 years and delighted to have Davie Carswell come up with an excellent script. Benny fought 5 times at Cathkin and won every bout and this seems a fitting tribute to launch CPL as a Production Company.

The wonderful cast includes Stephen Purdon, Holly Jack & David Hayman and is directed by David Hayman Jr and the tour dates are above. We will be donating a percentage of the profits of this tour to the Benny Lynch Statue Fund and to the #Restore2ndHampden Fund. The show will run again in Glasgow in 2020, when hopefully Benny will have his statue up by then! Check out our show's website here: https://www.thebennylynchstory.co.uk/

We have gained nationwide press coverage this month for the show and huge thanks to Simon Houston and George Mair for covering the tour and getting the show out there. Lots more to come folks and hope to see you at some of the shows?

Restoration - Week 33

Like something from an enchanted forest, parts of the old ground are coming back to what they once were and emerging from a blanket of moss and weed. With the wet weather I have been able to dig deep and get entrenched large roots cut out and removed from this East section of the terracing.

The moss particularly has been thickest here and on these riser steps and again most of the concrete has long gone, so we are bucketing out the ash infill and scrubbing what stone remains. As you can see from these close-ups, the moss is like a green sticky wool and a bugger to remove properly.

But another ten hours graft this week made another wee dent in this section and every little bit done greatly improves the look of the terracing. Working with wire brushes as it is the only way to remove the moss almost strand by strand, but it is a laborious process.

However the stonework underneath is in great condition and scrubs up really well. Been sifting all of the spoil from here as well but still not unearthed anything of historical interest! Then we remove all of the ash, stone and mud from each terrace step before repacking the earth underneath and then

covering with buckets of red blaes from the track. This is, I hasten to add only a temporary solution and this will need to be back-filled with concrete in the next 12 months before we can truly sign off the work here. But it looks 100% better than it did in January when we began the restoration!!

We aim to have this section completed by the end of 2018, which would be 1/3 of this terrace restored and both riser stairwells. The side sections will be cleared and fixed up once the trees have shed their leaves and we can see the terracing a bit more clearly.

Then the plan is to move on to the last remaining untouched section still extant, on the SE corner, which has all but disappeared under the trees and waist-high weeds. And again due to the soft earth due to the heavy rain we managed to get working again on the running track this week, clearing another 12 x ? ft section. This was then packed hard and levelled out and is an improvement on the bumpy, unsafe surface it has been for as long as I have been involved here. It's another BIG job and will take at least a year to put right. But already I can envisage the thundering footsteps of players

racing around the running track again....or perhaps that is just the ghosts of all of those footballers who trained and played here over the last 134 years?