Capacity: 16,000
Club Founded: 1872
Club Dissolved: 1967
Third Lanark Club History
The Early Years
Third Lanark Athletic Club was formed in 1872, initially as the football team of the Third Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers 3rd LRV. Its military links were severed in 1903 when the club name was renamed Third Lanark AC. Within six years the club were beaten finalists in two Scottish Cup finals, against Queen's Park and Vale of Leven.
The Hi-Hi, to give them one of their nicknames alongside the Redcoats, Thirds, or Warriors, made up for the disappointment when lifting the Cup in 1888-89, when Celtic were defeated 2-1 with goals from Marshall and John Oswald, after the original final won 3-0 by Thirds was deemed null and void owing to the snowy conditions.
Scottish League Founding Members
The club were a founding member of the Scottish League in 1890-91, playing at their original Cathkin Park in Crosshills, before moving a few hundred meters east to take up residence at what was the home of Queen’s Park’s second edition of Hampden Park in 1903.
Third Lanark were crowned as Division One champions in 1903-04. The following season saw a second Scottish Cup triumph when a James Johnston goal, along with a brace from Hugh Wilson, was enough to beat Rangers 3-1 after a replay. Thirds returned to the final in 1905-06 but went down 1-0 to Heart of Midlothian.
Continuing to Shine
The team generally ended no worse than halfway up the table, with a few exceptions, before embarking on an eight-match tour of South America in 1923, which included a game against the Argentina national side. The following decade was marked by a series of relegations and promotions. In 1935-36, the team reached the Scottish Cup final, going down 1-0 to Rangers.
Another drop to the Second Division was followed by promotion in 1956-57 before the side finished third in the top flight. The vintage Thirds team included the forward line of Jimmy Goodfellow, Dave Hilley, Alex Harley, Matt Gray and Joe McInnes, who scored 100 goals between them.
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| Cathkin Park after the club was liquidated Image taken from an online source |
Liquidation
The star players moved on to further their careers, leading to relegation in 1964-65 after narrowly avoiding the drop the previous season. Accusations of mismanagement lingered in the background. The end was not far away. The club was declared bankrupt after a Board of Trade enquiry and was liquidated in 1967.
Boardroom corruption allegedly played a role in this. The role of the chairman of Thirds, Bill Hiddleston, remains subject to intense debate. He may have wished to profit personally from the sale of Cathkin Park for property development, with Cathkin being sold for housing during the 1967 close season, before the Glasgow City Council refused building permission.
Ulterior Motives?
It could be argued that he built a new stand in 1963, which would seem strange for someone interested in running the club down. Another allegation was that Hiddleston wanted to force the club to move to either Cumbernauld or East Kilbride, the booming ‘New Towns’ within the Glasgow commuter belt, which at that time had no Senior side of their own.
The report by The Board of Trade into Third Lanark's activities in 1967 found that players were paid badly and generally not very well looked after. Each of the club's managers was appointed personally by Hiddleston. There was a general disincentive for anyone to remain or even be a club shareholder if they were not part of Hiddleston's clique.
Some Third's fans decided to follow Pollock in the Junior League. The majority of the club's 10,000 supporters at the start of the 1960s were lost to football for good: Third Lanark had long been seen specifically as the club of choice for those who objected to the sectarian connotations of the "Old Firm".
Revival Attempts
An amateur club took up the name in 1971 and played its games at Cathkin Park in Division 3 of the Greater Glasgow Amateur League. In 2008, it was rumoured that a team under the famous old Third Lanark name was preparing to apply to replace Gretna in the Scottish League, but it came to nothing.
Then, in 2010, a group called Friends of Cathkin Park fought to restore the old stadium and introduce some new Third Lanark teams. The name of Third Lanark appeared again in the Scottish football scene from 1996 through an under-18s side, before a new committee was formed in 2004, chaired by former player Alan Mackay.
The club gradually progressed as the team played in the West of Scotland Amateur League, intending to progress into the Junior FA and to ensure that Cathkin Park could be used. However, the side found themselves playing at the Toryglen Regional Football Centre in the Central Scottish Amateur Football League.
Meanwhile, the Jimmy Johnstone Charitable Trust, including the Jimmy Johnstone Academy in memory of the former Celtic legend, had boys' football moved into Cathkin Park. The ground also staged games of Hampden AFC as members of the Glasgow Colleges Amateur Football Association.
The Jimmy Johnstone Academy applied to the council to install two shipping containers to be converted into changing rooms at the ground in the summer of 2020 to provide facilities for youth footballers.
My visits
Thursday 29th January 2010I had been to many grounds in the Glasgow area over the previous three days, but I was to leave the saddest story until last. My final port of call was Cathkin Park. My Hampden Park guide, Sandy, had told me how sad he was when he recalled his days of standing on the packed terracing watching games at Cathkin Park.
I thought I had gone on the wrong path from Hampden, but I found an entrance to a park. I walked through a wooded area in the gloom and found myself standing at the back of the old terracing. This continued around three sides of the arena. A large roof once covered spectators opposite the Main Stand, but it had long gone.
