Mural commemorating first Hampden Park

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 28 Mar 2023

The mural went up in 2019, and is painted on the back of Hampden Bowling Club's clubhouse. Two years earlier someone at the club, which had long maintained it was sited on the land once occupied by the world's first international football stadium, had found a railway company map somewhere that showed the plans for the railway line seen in the picture to bisect the pitch. Due to the fact that the ground was built after the first OS map and demolished to make way for the new railway before the second OS map got surveyed there had until then been no conclusive proof. Considering that for years nobody was entirely sure exactly where the ground had been, other facts and figures about the place should probably be treated with a bit of caution. A standout one is that the pitch dimensions inside this first national stadium were apparently a huge 200 yards by 100 yards. Scotland hosted six matches during the ground's 11 year existence and won them all, scoring at least five goals in each game - England and Wales lost three apiece. Queen's Park F.C. held the lease and played their home games here, as was the case at the two subsequent Hampden Parks until as recently as 2021. The quite brilliant ludicrousness of a team of increasingly dwindling stature, with average attendances in the low to mid hundreds, playing their matches in a 50,000 capacity national stadium had to come to an end sometime I suppose, and the SFA now own the latest Hampden Park. Queen's Park are currently ground-sharing whilst their former training pitch, Lesser Hampden, is brought up to standard. It is odd that the 5-1 win is the one the mural celebrates, considering that they also beat England 7-2 on this same ground. I have not checked, but it could be that one or both of the two iconic players - Charles Campbell and Andrew Watson - that flank the scoreline did not feature in the bigger victory. Scotland dominated England in the early years of football. Whilst the head-to-head record is currently 48-41 in England's favour, Scotland were 29-19 ahead at the outbreak of the Second World War. A match report of an early game here alludes to the fact that in the old rules every time a goal was scored the teams had to change ends. This rule was dropped in 1875. The stadium existed from 1873 to 1884.

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