The Last Stanza of Hampden Bowling Club and The Hampden Collection
- FSM Blogger
- Feb 15
- 7 min read
This is the speech by Graeme Brown, Secretary of Hampden Bowling Club, Founder of The Hampden Collection and Director of Football's Square Mile, from our Last Stanza Event held on St Valentine's Day 2026 - a massive thank you to all the organisers and the Poets for putting on a brilliant last ceilidh!
Ladies and Gentlemen, Happy Valentine’s Day. This is an apt day to kiss goodbye to a place, which I will cherish forever.
Two weeks ago, in this very setting, we held the 'Sadio' for the members of Hampden Bowling Club to say their goodbyes. The Last Stanza was created to provide a poetic 'Lang May Yer Lum Reek' opportunity for the football community to gather at the site of 1st Hampden, and reflect on the role this 'Tartan Fortress' has played in the mission to tell the world the Scotch Professor tale, and say goodbye in your own way.
The Hampden Bowling Club chapter is about to close, and we have another of its creations, founded in these 4 walls, which is also nearing its mighty conclusion. As you are about to hear, 'From small acorns, do mighty oaks grow'. If Hampden Bowling Club was heads, The Hampden Collection was its tales.
That's spelt 't a l e s' for those that cannot see my script.
The Hampden Collection began on 30th December 2017, as a blank sheet of paper, to celebrate the 3 Hampden Parks, and became, over time, a place where Scottish football history, poetry, art and culture collided to 'Tell the Greatest Story Never Told'. Bowls and football are not natural bedfellows, so it needed its own name, brand and ambition.
Our team became known as The Hampdeners, and learned an incredible amount through this tenure, preserving, protecting and promoting the 3 most important football grounds of all time.
As Football’s Square Mile continues to evolve, it does so in a way that feels familiar — echoing the story of the Three Hampdens, where each phase makes room for the next, and each leaves something behind. A tangible footprint, where current and future football lovers can explore and trace the journey through the mind-bending, cart upending story of the Scotch Professors, and how they exported the modern game to the globe. The one that keeps catching everyone's attention is the role cricket plays in this story. For those believers, we are sitting in what was once part of a cricket pavilion, after all.
In this next generational shift, the Hampden Collection will be prorogued and placed in our FSM Hall of Fame on 11th March 2026, its work done, and leaving its DNA woven effortlessly into Football's Square Mile, which will carry this baton onwards.
Our thanks begin with our poetry collection, where we congratulate all the poets involved who have inspired us through their words. Our team of 8 Makars over the last 8 years is an incredible line up of true mastercraft - Stephen Watt, Jim Mackintosh, Julie McNeill, Susi Briggs, Stuart Kenny, Gaby Barnby, Donna Matthews and Hugh McMillan. Your voices gave The Hampden Collection its character and depth, and ensured Scotland's football story was told far and wide. You inspired others to contribute to an incredible collection of over 200 poems, sharing their raw emotions about the beautiful game. These poems will be safely stored within the digital vault of Football's Square Mile for everyone to enjoy. Who knows, there might even be a book in the future.
Then there are all our efforts to promote the Hampden story. When we started, we had no idea we would have such a monumental ride taking us to the heights of being seen on Sky Sports, STV, BT Sports, BBC Scotland, and found within articles in The Herald, Scotsman, The Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, and then heard on Radio Scotland, Talk Sport, Heart FM, Off The Ball, Out of Doors, and finally being able to present in the Scottish Football Museum Hall of Fame, and FIFA Museum. This is to name but a few. If you don't believe us, type into Google, 'Hampden Collection’, and you will find out more about our exploits. One day, we hope to add MGM, Amazon, Netflix, Disney+ and TNT Sports to that list.
Our work has supported budding young journalists learn their craft, as they progress through their courses. And finally we have grown through the influencers' age and YouTube generation, making pals with the media of tomorrow. We have been an open door for all those who wanted a voice to tell this story, and most importantly showed this is your shared history. No one can claim it as their own.
We have to thank our wider team, Barry Kirk, Professor Fiona Skillen, Mel Curry and Rory Bryce. They have been brilliant throughout, supporting our mission and helping open doors into places we never thought possible. Then there is Lindsay Hamilton of Glasgow Football Tour, a turbocharged ball of football history fire, and we salute her pursuit of giving you 5-star tours around these fabled sites, and we are proud to have GFT as a FSM Alliance member and tour partner.
And finally, The Hampden Collection's mission was to protect the Hampden Park legacy. Well first of all, it starts with knowing there are 3 Hampdens, not 1. We have worked our socks off to protect the site of First Hampden over the last 11 years. Ashley Rawson, a neighbour of the bowling club, took up the challenge of creating the 1st Hampden Mural, and giving us the Football's Square Mile logo. Ashley's contribution is enormous and made our mission visible. We salute his artistic brilliance.
From archaeology digs to murals to events to tours. There is no place like this on the footballing planet. Our mission to Restore 1st Hampden has been handed over to the community - their mission is now to safeguard this green space for the future. As a proud member of the 26 organisation FSM Alliance, First Hampden CIC, has a powerful array of support to fulfil its community-led ambitions.
There are countless others who have been on our journey, too many to name, and we thank you all. This is a Story of 3 Hampdens, and it’s important to protect both the Hampden Bowling Club and the Hampden Collection Legacy.
The first footsteps of this footballing adventure, a 65,000-word blog and minute book of Hampden Bowling Club through 2015 to 2017, going out each Sunday night at 830pm. This will also be safely stored in the FSM Digital Vault, and was the first acorn of our 1st Hampden adventure, which set in motion everything achieved so far, and how the mighty oak is growing.
The 2nd Hampden now has scheduled monument status, and our HES designation application covers all 3 Hampden sites, as well as the other 18 sites in the world's most ambitious football heritage project. We continue to work with Historic Environment Scotland to unravel the stories of these magnificent sites, the cradle of the modern game, where every one of the 5 billion footy fans should visit.
Who would have thought that our first campaign was aptly named #KeepHampdenRoaring, and our mission was to keep the 3rd Hampden Park in Glasgow, rather than moving to Murrayfield, Edinburgh? A massive thank you to James McHugh, a pal and fellow member of the Tartan Army, for supporting the 9-month-long campaign in 2018 to convince the SFA to stay.
This is not an ending, but a change of formation. The spirit, ideas and energy of The Hampden Collection will continue as part of Football’s Square Mile. The 3 Hampdens are the centrepiece of the World's Biggest Open-Air Football Museum. There is no other place on the planet that celebrates the first 150+ years of the modern national and international footballing era.
With the closing of Hampden Bowling Club, we have reviewed everything we do. Our next chapter will focus on our UNESCO Mission for all 21 sites and turbocharge our efforts to light up Football's Square Mile, and use every ounce of energy to make it No. 1 on the football fan's bucket list.
Our Football's Square Mile Board are taking up this challenge. This streamlined team will work with all our FSM members and Alliance Ambassadors, use all we have learned, and build our network of friends around the footballing parish to help us achieve those UNESCO stars.
We are delighted to announce our new formation -
Graeme Brown - Company Director
David Coutts - Company Director
Richard 'Siggy' Young - Company Director
Ashley Rawson - Creative Director
Julie McNeill - Culture Director
Our new team will need everyone's support to create the worldie, which one no one is expecting. In the last 11 years, we burst through all the glass ceilings above our heads, and challenged those who feel they are the only ones who can tell it. No expectations were set. But ask yourself one question. When did you find out there were 3 Hampden Parks in Glasgow?
So ladies and gentlemen, I would like you all to stand, if you are able. I am going to go backwards through years to find out when you found out there were 3 Hampden Parks in Glasgow. If you only found out in 2026, please sit down. 2025, 2024, 2023……..2017. (Post Script - everyone was seated by 2017).
Thank you - it shows you the power of what we have achieved. So I will leave you with this final thought. Watch out world. The Scotch Professors are on their comeback tour. Football's Square Mile is our future, and therefore, we have to celebrate what has gone before it.
I would like you all to charge your glasses and join me in a toast to celebrate the most important coin in football history.
Hampden Bowling Club and The Hampden Collection.
I have made brilliant lifelong friends through this adventure. I have this place to thank for that.
Thank you
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