Lesser | |
Coordinates | 55°49′32″N4°15′20″W / 55.82556°N 4.25556°W |
---|---|
Owner | Queen's Park F.C. |
Capacity | 12,000 (on opening) [1] 470 (seats, current) [2] 1,774 (seats, projected) [2] |
Surface | Grass |
Construction | |
Built | 1923 |
Opened | 1924 |
Renovated | 2012–2015 [3] [4] |
Tenants | |
Queen's Park F.C. youth |
Lesser Hampden (currently known as The City Stadium for sponsorship reasons) [5] is a football stadium in Mount Florida, Glasgow, Scotland, which is located immediately beside the western end of Hampden Park stadium.
In 1923, Queen's Park were looking for an alternative venue for their reserves and youth teams, [1] with a basic pitch to the south of the main stand at Hampden Park increasingly being used as a car park. [6] The club purchased a farm on the west side of Hampden and built a pitch and stands. [1] When it opened in 1924, Lesser Hampden had a capacity of 12,000. [1] To reduce costs, the original farmhouse building was retained and was converted into a pavilion and dressing room. [1] [7] This farmhouse, now demolished, which dated back to the 19th century, was believed by football historians to be the oldest existing football stadium building in the world. [1] [3] [8] [6] The changing rooms were closed in 2013 for safety reasons. [8]
During World War II, Lesser Hampden was commandeered by the British Government to serve as a base for the Home Guard. [1] [6] There were proposals to convert the site back to agriculture if there were food shortages, but the ground was returned to the football club at the end of the war in 1945. [1]
During the 1970s, several Queen's Park first team games were played at the stadium. [6] During the redevelopment of the main Hampden Park stadium in the 1990s, the club played Scottish Football League matches at this ground. [1] [6] The ground served as a staging area for pre-game tailgate parties hosted by the Scottish Claymores American football team when they played at Hampden Park. [1]
During preparations to make use of the site for the 2002 UEFA Champions League Final, it was discovered that Lesser Hampden was tainted with toxic chromium (VI), a byproduct from an old chemicals plant located in nearby Rutherglen. [9] [10] This was cleaned up at a cost of around £40,000. [1]
Lesser Hampden is tightly hemmed in to the west by surrounding housing and commercial developments. It has some areas of terracing, floodlights and a small covered grandstand adjacent to the original farmhouse building. The natural grass pitch was replaced with a 3rd-Generation astro-grass pitch (funded partly by donations from local businessman Willie Haughey and partly from proceeds from well-attended cup ties) [11] and was used as a warm-up area for athletes competing in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, as the track and field events were held at Hampden Park. [12] Like the main stadium it was temporarily converted into an athletics venue and thereafter returned to football use. [6] [13]
Since Hampden's 1999 redevelopment, a row of Portakabins on the north side of the Lesser Hampden pitch had housed the Queen's Park club offices, with a proposed rebuild of the site as an elite youth development facility never materialising. [1] [9] In 2013 a new clubhouse at the south-west corner was completed, [2] named the J. B. McAlpine Pavilion to honour the club's record goalscorer. [4] [14] [6]
In September 2018, it was announced that Queen's Park would return to Lesser Hampden to play first team matches on a permanent basis after agreeing to sell Hampden Park itself to the Scottish FA, which had been leasing the larger ground as the base for the national team. [15] In November 2019, the club released plans to upgrade Lesser Hampden to an SPFL-standard venue which included an extension of the existing west stand, a new east stand and associated facilities, with a seating capacity of 1,774. [2] [16] [6] [17] Work on Lesser Hampden was delayed, which meant that Queen's Park had to groundshare at the Falkirk Stadium, at Firhill [18] and then at Ochilview Park after their lease on Hampden expired. [19]
The club released a revised plan in early December 2021; [20] [21] within two weeks, demolition of the farmhouse and byre had commenced. [22]
Partick Thistle Football Club are a professional football club from Glasgow, Scotland. Despite their name, the club are based at Firhill Stadium in the Maryhill area of the city, and have not played in Partick since 1908. The club have been members of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) since its formation in 2013, having previously been members of the Scottish Football League. In the 2020–21 season, Thistle won Scottish League One, the third tier of the SPFL structure, and returned to the Scottish Championship, having been relegated from there in 2019–20.
Queen's Park Football Club is a Scottish professional football club based in Glasgow, which currently plays in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish football pyramid. Queen's Park is the oldest association football club in Scotland, having been founded in 1867, and is the 10th oldest in the world.
Celtic Park is a football stadium, currently the home of Scottish Premiership team Celtic Football Club, in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, Scotland. With a capacity of 60,832, it is the largest football stadium in Scotland, and the eighth-largest stadium in the United Kingdom. It is also known as Parkhead or Paradise.
Ibrox Stadium is a football stadium on the south side of the River Clyde in the Ibrox area of Glasgow, Scotland. The home of Scottish Premiership team Rangers Football Club, Ibrox is the third largest football stadium in Scotland, with an all-seated capacity of 50,817. The stadium was designed by renowned football stadium architect Archibald Leitch, with renovations to the stadium between 1978 and 1981, as well as 1990 and 1991, being designed by The Miller Partnership and Gareth Hutchison respectively.
Hampden Park is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland, which is the national stadium of football in Scotland and home of the Scotland national football team. Hampden Park is owned by the Scottish Football Association (SFA), and regularly hosts the latter stages of the Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. A UEFA category four stadium, Hampden Park has hosted six European finals including the 1960 European Cup final between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt which, with a crowd of 127,621 in attendance, is the highest ever recorded attendance for a European Cup final.
Pittodrie Stadium, commonly referred to as Pittodrie, is an all-seater stadium in Aberdeen, Scotland. Used primarily for football, it has been the home ground of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) club Aberdeen F.C. since they were formed in 1903. Prior to then, the ground hosted the original Aberdeen F.C. from 1899 until the merger that created the present club.
Cathkin Park is a municipal park in Glasgow, Scotland. The park is maintained by the city's parks department, and it is a public place where football is still played. The park contains the site of the second Hampden Park, previously home to the football clubs Queen's Park and Third Lanark. The site of the original Hampden Park is just to the west.
Firhill Stadium, also known as Wyre Stadium at Firhill for sponsorship reasons, is a football and former rugby union, rugby league and greyhound racing stadium located in the Maryhill area of Glasgow, Scotland which has been the home of Partick Thistle since 1909.
The Excelsior Stadium is a football stadium in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the home ground of Airdrieonians of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL). Since the 2021–22 season it has also been used by Celtic for the home matches of their women's team in the Scottish Women's Premier League (SWPL) and B team in the Scottish Lowland Football League, as well as by Glasgow University F.C. of the West of Scotland Football League. It is an all-seater stadium with a capacity of 10,101, and has a 3G artificial surface.
Mount Florida is an area in the south-east of the city of Glasgow, Scotland.
The Falkirk Stadium is an all-seater football stadium in Falkirk, central Scotland, which is the home ground of Scottish League One club Falkirk and Lowland Football League club East Stirlingshire since 2018. The stadium has a capacity of 7,937 and currently consists of three fully completed stands.
Sport plays an important role in the culture of Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland. Association football is particularly popular: Glasgow is known for the fierce Old Firm rivalry between Scotland's most successful clubs, Celtic and Rangers. The national stadium, Hampden Park, is located in the city and stages most home matches of the Scotland national team, as well as the finals of the Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. The Scottish Football Association (SFA) and Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) are both also based at Hampden. The world's first official international match took place in Glasgow in 1872.
Broadwood Stadium is a multi-use community stadium and sports complex in the Westfield area of Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire. The stadium is currently the home of Cumbernauld Colts of the Scottish Lowland Football League, as well as Rangers W.F.C of the Scottish Women's Premier League.
Hampden Park in Glasgow is the primary home stadium for the Scotland national football team. This has been the case since 1906, soon after it opened. The present site of Hampden Park is the third location to bear that name and both the previous locations also hosted Scotland games. Scotland have also played many of their home games in other stadiums throughout their history, both in friendly matches and for competitive tournaments.
Ochilview Park is a football stadium in Stenhousemuir in the Falkirk council area of Scotland. It is the home ground of Scottish League Two club Stenhousemuir. The stadium has a capacity of 3,746 with 626 seated.
John Hunter Devine, also known as Hunter Devine, was a Scottish amateur footballer who played as an inside forward for Queen's Park between 1953 and 1961. Devine represented Great Britain at the 1960 Summer Olympics and also played in non-League football.
Hampden Park was a football ground in Crosshill, Renfrewshire. The home ground of Queen's Park from 1873 until 1883, it was the first of three stadiums to bear the same name, and hosted the first-ever Scottish Cup final in 1874.
The Original Glasgow derby is the name for the old rivalry between crosstown Scottish football clubs Queen's Park and Rangers, both based in Glasgow. The two clubs are two of the most successful in the Scottish Cup, and the rivalry between them was one of the more intense in the early years of Scottish football, before being overtaken by the Old Firm rivalry from the 1900s onwards. The highest Scottish Cup attendance figure for the fixture was recorded on 18 January 1930 at Hampden Park for the first round, when 95,722 fans attended. The two clubs met in the top flight for last time during 1957–58, the final season before Queen's Park's relegation. The club retained their amateur status from their foundation in 1867 until 2019, which meant it was extremely difficult to compete at the highest level and the intensity of the derby dramatically declined after 1958 as the Spiders never returned to the top tier.
Over the 150-year history of football in Scotland, most teams have occupied several grounds as their home; this has occasionally involved a relocation to another community altogether. Grounds which have been in continuous use for several decades have been extensively redeveloped, particularly since the 1990s, with a few exceptions. This article and the accompanying tables focus on those Scottish Football League / Scottish Professional Football League clubs which have moved to a different stadium, including temporarily, since the 1980s when this became more frequent.