Third Lanark

[Hampden Diehard]

Think Rangers fans gravitated more towards Third Lanark as their wee team and Celtic fans more towards Clyde. That was in the era when a lot of people in Dundee and Edinburgh would also go to see one club one week and the other club the next as well. My pet theory would be that the people who did that were the ones that floated away to do other things when leisure and entertainment options such as TV became available in the 60s and 70s, leaving the more committed and tribal hardcore following one club obsessively. Most LL clubs have minimal support, so getting at least that far shouldn't be mission impossible for them is there is more than just Pat McGeady committed to this. The SPFL may be a bridge too far though.

A lot of older QP fans used to watch Thirds one week and QP the next, and vice versa re the Thirds fans. A fair number of present day auld QP fans were Thirds fans, so we did (relatively) well out of the poor Hi-Hi's demise.

[HibeeJibee]

Litster provides a stark illustration of the consequences of relegation and the end of the post-war crowd boom on Thirds attendances (and therefore on income). In 1961-62 their home-and-away attendances - gatesharing was still in operation - amounted to 555,489. Only 5 seasons later in their closing campaign they amounted to 55,543 or almost exactly a tenth. He also notes that admission was lower in the old Division Two.

Btw personally I think it would be a shame if a kit stand and panel fence were ever thrown up round Cathkin. It's a moving sight and monument as it is.

[Black Dug]

A bit sad to see what the place looks like now compared to its heyday.

This picture shows how close to Hampden it is.

[Fear no foe]

It's a fascinating story reading about the hi hi.

Have a few books about thirds up the loft. My mate used to work alongside the author at the Hampden museum who was, or maybe still is a Third Lanark historian. Guys name escapes me though.

Will need to dig the books out sometime.

[Jacksgranda]

Bert Bell?

[Glenconner]

For a decade after the Hi Hi went defunct Cathkin or more so the area in front of the old stand was used for parking supporters buses at Hampden games.

Interesting how quickly the few Thirds fans left scattered to other teams going by what's being posted on here.

[airdrieman]

It's a fascinating story reading about the hi hi.

Have a few books about thirds up the loft. My mate used to work alongside the author at the Hampden museum who was, or maybe still is a Third Lanark historian. Guys name escapes me though.

Will need to dig the books out sometime.

Bob Laird?

Will certainly be a difficult task for the plan to come of as they want it to but it's not impossible. Best of luck to them. Would be amazing if they're successful.

[WILLIEA]

First senior game I was taken to was Motherwell V Thirds.

Have also seen them at Broomfield.

Seen them at Cathkin V Queens, Ayr,Stranraer, Clyde and a few others.

I was at school in Rutherglen at the time.

ETA Despite having seen loads of them especially at Motherwell in the old 1st division where they occupied the whole of one terracing, and living pretty close for years I have never ever met a Thirds fan!

[Glenconner]

First senior game I was taken to was Motherwell V Thirds.

Have also seen them at Broomfield.

Seen them at Cathkin V Queens, Ayr,Stranraer, Clyde and a few others.

I was at school in Rutherglen at the time.

ETA Despite having seen loads of them especially at Motherwell in the old 1st division where they occupied the whole of one terracing, and living pretty close for years I have never ever met a Thirds fan!

In 40 years i've met one and he lived originally in Polmadie St.

Mentioned Queens Park to him once and i might as well have said Stranraer.

Btw, the Junior world is full of teams that got fans in their thousands in the 1950s.

Ashfield would be a prime example.

Eff knows where these supporters went.

The Old Firm wouldn't account for them all fading away.

[LongTimeLurker]

Had relatives from Govanhill who were Thirds fans (basically stopped going to senior football after they folded as Queen's Park and Clyde were still viewed as local rivals and they weren't keen on the baggage that goes with Rangers) so they did exist. Think what changed from the 50s to the 60s is that the arrival of television killed off the less committed floating support that generated the huge crowds of the 50s for clubs like Clyde, Third Lanark and Partick Thistle and the various junior clubs.

[third lanark]

I can't say to much just now as I'm sworn to secrecy other than expect a major announcement about Third Lanark in 6 months time when pretty much everything will be fully in place.

While there has always been supporters reviving the club it's only been in the last few months that a number of individuals with resources have come on board hence the launch of a newThird Lanark football academy as well.

Just on the support aspect knowing a few people on the board I'd say at least 60% were not born when Thirds played in1967.

I myself was not born then and while my first team will always be Partick Thistle I have a huge interest in Thirds and their ongoing resurrection. And wish them every success. Also the announcements in 6 months regarding them to me look fantastic

[newcastle broon]

I can't say to much just now as I'm sworn to secrecy other than expect a major announcement about Third Lanark in 6 months time when pretty much everything will be fully in place.

While there has always been supporters reviving the club it's only been in the last few months that a number of individuals with resources have come on board hence the launch of a newThird Lanark football academy as well.

Just on the support aspect knowing a few people on the board I'd say at least 60% were not born when Thirds played in1967.

I myself was not born then and while my first team will always be Partick Thistle I have a huge interest in Thirds and their ongoing resurrection. And wish them every success. Also the announcements in 6 months regarding them to me look fantastic

So is it relevant to a LL thread then ?

[LongTimeLurker]

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/third-lanark-fan-launches-bid-7075056#ICID=sharebar_twitter

Pat is a director of the team’s supporters’ club and responsible for raising sponsorship money.

He added : “Our amateur team are going well.

“The plan would be to use Cathkin as a ground for a team which could aim for the Lowland League, which offers a route into the league via the new pyramid set up in Scotland.

[Glenconner]

Good luck to Third Lanark 21st Century style.

Honestly eff knows where they're going to find a support from.

[HibeeJibee]

Regarding their old support - almost by definition anyone who can remember supporting Third Lanark must be into their 60s now.

Even assuming it was evenly spread over all ages (it was probably older) and not considering away fans, only a few hundred will be alive.

[LongTimeLurker]

Edinburgh City, Spartans and Cove Rangers have very few regulars and are viewed as viable candidates for SPFL entry, so they would not be alone in that regard. Maybe they could become a cult hipster club like Dulwich Hamlet, if student Juan Kerr types could be persuaded to venture through Govanhill or there again maybe not. Given how often I used to have to listen to boring stories about Cathkin it would be good to be able to watch a Thirds game played there at a semi-professional sort of level.

[Fear no foe]

Bob Laird?

That's the fella

[WaffenThinMint]

It is worth saying that the traditional explanation for why (and how) Thirds went bust was significantly challenged by John Litster's book in 2010 - which went into the detail of the case for the first time. For example Glasgow Corporation itself had actually been looking acquiring the ground for housing as early as 1963 - and it was the Secretary of State of Scotland who was refusing to rezone land on Southside due to a shortage of open space as it was.

When they folded in the summer of 1967 it was held under security to the Royal Bank of Scotland against the club overdraft. It could not be sold until a Board of Trade investigation proceeded and the council (who the liquidator actually blamed for delays) wanted it for parks or housing if rezoned. It was sold by the liquidators to Laidlaws Builders for £36,500 in Jan 1968 - they made the highest bid not subject to planning permission. At that time the council still wanted it for housing themselves.

Unfortunately that aforementioned excellent book by John Litster, called 'Life and Death of the Hi Hi', does not follow the story of Cathkin Park beyond its sale in 1968 and the final dissolving of the club in 1972. It must have been subsequent to this that control over planning permission passed to the council, and they later refused permission for housing, which is presumably what the developer was playing a long game for. It was sold to GCC for parkland in "the late 1970s".

We've discussed Litster's book about Third Lanark, and the consensus was that whilst excellent on facts and figures much of it was revisionist nonsense. Litster came up with the ridiculous idea that somehow the move to the third Cathkin Park doomed the club to a prolonged death (a notion he seemed to have lifted from that other popular revisionist myth of Renton's supposed doom from blowing what money they had on Tontine). He glossed over the damning Board of Trade report which firmly placed the blame on William Hiddleston and his acolytes (that Hiddleston had his own daughter as the second highest paid member of staff when she was still at school says it all).

Lilster proffering the earlier Secretary of State refusal for building as any sort of "proof" Hiddleston wasn't trying to run the club to a fold to flog the land for housing is very much a red herring. In 1963, the Tory Michael Noble was the Secretary of State, Teddy Taylor the local MP: zero chance for the Labourite Glasgow Corporation to get permission to indulge in a bit of social engineering to try & pack the one seat in Glasgow not in their grasp with "good" (ie.reflex) Labour voters via council housing.

It set the precedent on any building on the site, but Councillor Reilly (Hiddleston's deputy) had assured him this difficulty could easily be overcome upon the next change of government: unfortunately for them Labour didn't have any sort of working majority until 1966, by which time the Board of Trade had already been alerted to the malpractices going on there by the club's former accountant and the rush to kill Thirds stone dead was on.

The death of Third Lanark was a matter of considerable embarrassment to Glasgow Labour as it brought into the open that "the people's party", "the party of the working class" was full of much the same money grabbing councillors having their palms greased by crooked businessmen and jerry builders wanting to cash in on the housing boom as the Tories - and it came as little surprise that they subsequently lost control of the council to a Progressive/Tory administration in the subsequent Corporation election in 1969.

[Glenconner]

Would i be right in saying certain Glasgow Labour councillors in that time period 1950/60s ended up in Barlinnie Prison so bad was the corruption.

[WaffenThinMint]

Would i be right in saying certain Glasgow Labour councillors in that time period 1950/60s ended up in Barlinnie Prison so bad was the corruption.

Indeed they did. Baillie James Reilly (rotting in Hell since 2003) was only fined by the courts for his part in Third Lanark's demise - but he was finally caught out in 1969 for taking bribes to get people to jump the queue for council housing at £100 a pop (£1550 in today's money). As the incidents he was prosecuted for stretched back to 1966, it may well be that Hi-Hi fans had been doing a bit of sleuthing & passed on the evidence the police needed; knowing that without Reilly, Hiddleston was finished.

There had been a portend of things to come when Reilly was prosecuted & fined on 23rd February 1967 for making false claims for Legal Aid & failing to appear in court where he was supposed to be defending two Weegie neds for assault in Kilsyth.

The entire Labour Party of Glasgow was suspended from the party as a result of the case, although cynics may point to the election loss earlier in the year and Labour's habit under such circumstances of expelling a few token scapegoats to fool the proles all was well again. One of those who survived the purge was a certain Councillor Pat Lally, whom the local police board had wanted out for his habit of specifically selling ties with the logos & slogans of the local razor gangs (you had a better class of Ned in the good old days it seems...) & refusal to cease selling them.

Regarding Third Lanark's latest "cunning plan", I don't think it is another yawnfest publicity stunt through the Daily Rectum. There was some sort of skulduggery going on during the summer of 2014 when the players & either the treasurer or secretary didn't like what was being planned (to wit, the idea of the resurrected club going into the LL as a part football club, part "living history" venue with Cathkin being a museum of football) and effectively seceded from the rest of the club & changing their name. What was very underhand was the Greater Glasgow League accepted this new club as the continuation of the "old" club, meaning the real Third Lanark were forced to start from scratch.

If Third Lanark's scheme does come to fruition in the summer, those who tried to do a mini-Hiddleston of their own may come to regret it, as it's a crazy enough idea to work - in the immortal words of Gordon Jackson "Why didn't anyone else think of that? It's so stupid, it's positively brilliant!"