Football historian Bob Crampsey reflects on the passing of the last Scots club to go to the wall and examines the threat to today's clubs. It is difficult to draw a comparison between the situation Airdrie and Clydebank find themselves in and the one which saw Third Lanark go out of business.
The really sad thing about Third Lanark is that on the playing side they were doing tremendously well.
They had a wonderful forward line and had finished third in the then-First Division in 1961, scoring 100 goals in the process.
That was a case of someone deliberately trying to run a football club into the ground.
Former director William Hiddleston bought up enough club shares to gain a controlling interest in 1962 and set about orchestrating the demise of a fine club.
His aim was to sell the ground to a property developer and then benefit from it substantially.
Football clubs are very hard to kill - it took a man who knew exactly what he was doing five years to kill off Third Lanark When you close a club, you do not attract one single extra spectator - you simply drive away the 2,000 that were Airdrie supporters for example.
That's what happened with Third Lanark - if the Third Lanark support are anywhere in number these days it's at Newlandsfield Park watching Pollok Juniors.
Excellent photo's, i would love to see the name of Third Lanark once again in the Scottish league. I'm not even from Scotland,but they were sewn up badly. I have to say the Cathkin park look's pretty amazing. Hope they get going again.
From the BBC Website 07/03/2001
ReplyDeleteFootball historian Bob Crampsey reflects on the passing of the last Scots club to go to the wall and examines the threat to today's clubs.
It is difficult to draw a comparison between the situation Airdrie and Clydebank find themselves in and the one which saw Third Lanark go out of business.
The really sad thing about Third Lanark is that on the playing side they were doing tremendously well.
They had a wonderful forward line and had finished third in the then-First Division in 1961, scoring 100 goals in the process.
That was a case of someone deliberately trying to run a football club into the ground.
Former director William Hiddleston bought up enough club shares to gain a controlling interest in 1962 and set about orchestrating the demise of a fine club.
His aim was to sell the ground to a property developer and then benefit from it substantially.
Football clubs are very hard to kill - it took a man who knew exactly what he was doing five years to kill off Third Lanark
When you close a club, you do not attract one single extra spectator - you simply drive away the 2,000 that were Airdrie supporters for example.
That's what happened with Third Lanark - if the Third Lanark support are anywhere in number these days it's at Newlandsfield Park watching Pollok Juniors.
Excellent photo's, i would love to see the name of Third Lanark once again in the Scottish league.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even from Scotland,but they were sewn up badly.
I have to say the Cathkin park look's pretty amazing.
Hope they get going again.
All the best