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Favourite quirks of Scottish stadiums.


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1 hour ago, killiepiemuncher said:


I think it’s the corner of the Celtic end and the main south stand ie the south east corner of the ground. The photo has been reversed.

Yes, I remember this photo featuring somewhere on P&B before and that was indeed the explanation.

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On 9 December 2017 at 15:28, Daydream said:


Is that a railway line just to the rear?

Caledonian Railway switchback freight line built in the 1890s. It was built to bypass an number of East/West lines going through the city. It branched off the main Glasgow/London at an elevated level and went from Rutherglen to the north side of the city and on to the Hamiltonhill branch line. It linked several long gone goods yards from London Rd to Colston in the North, the Parkhead Beardmores Forge, Provan Gas Works etc plus two major hospitals. It was used in the First World War to ferry the injured direct from the Channel Ports to Stobhill hospital. It closed in the mid 1960s.

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On 12/3/2017 at 22:04, Flybhoy said:

The jungle as I remember it in the 80's and 90's from roughly the same angle.

Looks relatively neat but was still quite primitive from what I recall as a boy. Toilets were horrendous and it could get quite cramped at games v the **** and european ties, meaning as a laddie I saw little of the game but what an atmosphere  8)

My first ever game in there was 2nd January 1988 when a Frank McAvennie double beat the now dead club 2-0 on the way to a league and cup double in Celtic's 100th year, not a bad first visit !!!

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Can remember changing ends at half time and having to walk through the jungle as an away fan. Now that was an experience.

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To bump the Billy Graham thing, which piqued my interest...

There was a book published after his campaign finished called 'Crusade in Scotland' and I got an old battered copy off Ebay. It's a narrative story as opposed to straightforward facts 'n figures but it covers the various aspects including the huge rallies held in football grounds. Ibrox was used on a "cold Friday evening" with 50,000 present... There was one at Tynecastle, at midday on a weekday, attended by 20,000 (there is a photo opposite p64 from inside the recently demolished main stand which appears to be full with what is now the Gorgie Stand end reasonably well filled)... He also went to Aberdeen and Inverness; presumably Pittodrie and Telford Street but isn't specified. This wasn't an especially innovative idea - his London campaign later that year used Wembley.

Unfortunately it doesn't conclusively answer the Hampden query. It says there were "close on a hundred thousand" at the closing Hampden evening, which tallies with the 90,000 or 100,000 figures online. However there is an aerial photo opposite p81 labelled "Capacity Crowd at the vast Hampden Park, Glasgow". It clearly isn't the same occasion as the photos I posted earlier in this thread as there are considerably more private cars and they're parked where the buses are. Unlike the online photos every part of the terracing looks packed - the East terracing 'shelf'  is only partly full in the online photos - and there's a thin string of people standing along the lip of the embankment and walkway behind the top of the West terrace. However unlike the online photos there isn't a thick ribbon of people sitting on the track inside the railing, only occasional shapes (presumably police, stewards and press). Whether it's over 149,000: who knows.

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Edited by HibeeJibee
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On 01/12/2017 at 21:05, HibeeJibee said:

Tomorrow marks the closure of Meadowbank, aka the Commonwealth Stadium, in Edinburgh after almost 50 years. Never a loved football venue but I'm actually really sad to see it go - there was something deeply impressive about that scale of concrete-and-steel in all its monumentalism. Supposedly the grandstand was the largest single-tiered in Scotland outside Hampden, also.

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Last trophy won there was apparently LTHV beating Edinburgh City in the EOS Cup in March.

I think the last football game on the main stadium was Edinburgh City v Stirling Albion in April in SPFL2.

Last football match on the complex is Leith Athletic v Burntisland Shipyard - an appropriately low-key matchup - in the EOS League Cup R1 tomorrow afternoon. Then the bulldozers move in. Edinburgh City have become tenants at Spartans; Leith at Edinburgh University.

Only ever went to one game there, an utterly tedious 0-0 draw during Dundee's First Division title season in 91/92. At least I think it was tedious. I went through on the Bowbridge Bar bus and we spend a couple of hours getting pished in a pub full of Welsh rugby fans. The most traumatic part of the day was being daft enough to get a seat at the back of that stand and having to carefully negotiate the steep stairs to go for a half-time Johnny Cash, a challenging affair when cunted. 

 

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