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150th Anniversary of the Opening of Hampden Park

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Announcement – 25th October 2023


Today, The Hampden Collection celebrates the 150th Anniversary of the opening of the 1st Hampden Park, as part of its #Fitba150 celebrations. The 1st Hampden set the standard for all modern football stadia and was the world’s first purposefully-built, enclosed international football ground.


As part of the celebrations, we are delighted to announce Clydesdale Cricket Club has joined the Football’s Square Mile Alliance, supporting the ambition to make the cradle of modern football a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The endorsement from Clydesdale celebrates the shared history of Queen’s Park and the cricket clubs of Glasgow, who were the ignition switch for the beautiful game in Scotland and its export around the world.


Today is an auspicious occasion for Scottish Football and World Football. On 25th October 1873, Queen’s Park Football Club opened Hampden Park with their first Scottish Cup match against Dumbreck and won the game 7 – 0. Queen’s Park set the evolving standard for the football ground, creating three iterations of Hampden Park, culminating in the current 3rd Hampden, which by 1937 had the capacity of over 183,000 fans.


Graeme Brown, Founder of The Hampden Collection, explains, “The 1st Hampden is the jewel in the crown of Football’s Square Mile, and is the template for every football ground ever built. Queen’s Park developed the modern passing and running game on this ground, and the Scotch Professors exported this beautiful game to the world. We encourage all the lovers of the beautiful game to come and visit to hear the story of our mission to make this a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the other 20 sites within Football’s Square Mile.”


Furthermore, today marks the 150th Anniversary of Clydesdale Football Club’s first competitive match, where they beat Granville 6 – 0 in their first match in the Scottish Cup.


Richard Young, Author of As The Willow Vanishes, explains, “The importance of the Clydesdale Cricket Club story hasn’t been appreciated, let alone known, by most of the club’s membership. However, in its 175th year in 2023, the club’s anniversary celebrations revealed how important it was to developing Scotland’s sporting landscape and how this legacy is an integral part of the club’s DNA .”


The importance of Queen’s Park and Clydesdale is clearly illustrated by how they combined at the dawn of association football, and led to the explosion of football across Glasgow, Scotland and the world:


  • 7 of the 8 clubs that created the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Cup were principally cricket clubs.

  • 13 of the original 16 entrants for the first Scottish Challenge Cup were principally cricket clubs.

  • Over 1,800 cricket clubs were in operation in the Glasgow area between 1848 and 1914 and turned to football to keep fit during the winter – a fact that is only now beginning to resonate with countless researchers and sports historians.


This combination of Queen’s Park pioneering role, combined with the infrastructure and networks deployed by their local cricket clubs, explains how Glasgow became the ‘Football Capital of the World’ by the end of the 19th Century.


Alistair Bleach, President of Clydesdale, commenting on the support for Football’s Square Mile, explains, “Clydesdale is one of Glasgow’s most important sporting institutions with a history steeped in cricket, rugby, hockey, athletics, tennis and football.


We are delighted to have our sports club designated within Football’s Square Mile, recognising our founding contribution to Association Football in Scotland, where our Founder, Archibald Campbell, was the first President of the Scottish Football Association. We are excited to be part of The Hampden Collection’s mission for UNESCO status and look forward to telling our story to the world.”


More information about our UNESCO mission and all the sites contained within Football’s Square Mile is found here – https://www.footballssquaremile.com/

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