9 - If Glasgow's Walls Could Talk
Much more than just football - historic stadiums and Football Memories, with Robert Harvey, Football Memories Scotland

Hello, and welcome to Glasgow City Heritage Trust podcast, "If Glasgow's Walls Could Talk”, a new series about the relationships, stories and shared memories that exist between Glasgow historic buildings and people.

Niall Murphy
Hello, I'm Niall Murphy and welcome to "If Glasgow's Walls Could Talk" a podcast by Glasgow City Heritage Trust about the stories and relationships between historic buildings and people in Glasgow.
In this episode, we will be talking about football and its social importance, and also about how much stadiums shaped and influenced Glaswegian lives across the centuries.
Football in Scotland goes back almost 600 years. And just like nowadays was enjoyed by monarchs such as James IV and Mary Queen of Scots and commoners alike, did you know that the oldest existing football in the world, dating from around 1540 and made of a pig bladder, was discovered in the Royal Palace at Stirling Castle? Scotland can also claim to be home to the world's first known Football Club, founded in Edinburgh in 1824.
One of the most interesting aspects of football is undoubtedly its social value, football clubs, for example, are historically known to be one of the main forces through which collective social identities are created and reinforced. Very often, and particularly in Glasgow, football clubs and teams enable communities to know themselves and to reinforce boundaries. People and social interactions are at the core of football, just like stadiums, and all the other venues linked by a sport, such as pubs and clubs. These spaces constitute an active agent, in shaping Glasgow's collective memory, stadiums and sports venues can be considered as one of the most ancient forms of urban architecture. Think about the stadium at Olympia, or the Colosseum in Rome. These venues continue to shape our cities and attract millions of people year after year through the centuries.
Glasgow is home to a few iconic stadiums, whose history is deeply intertwined with the history of the city and its people. One of the most famous being Ibrox Stadium, which is A listed and is located on the south side of the river Clyde. Ibrox is the third largest football stadium in Scotland with a capacity of 50,817. It opened as Ibrox Park in 1899, but sadly suffered a famous disaster in 1902 when a wooden terrace collapsed, causing the deaths of 25 people and injuring more than 500.
Another important Glasgow stadium, and Scotland's national stadium is Hampden Park. The present stadium is the third to be called Hampden Park, and it first opened its doors in 1903. Up until the 1950s, Hampden was the largest football stadium in the world. The current Hampden Park is also a historic venue for both Scottish and European football. The stadium has hosted six European Cup finals and holds various attendance records. In 1937 the first all ticketed Scotland match attracted an attendance of 149,415. The British record for any match as Scotland defeated England 3-1.
What these two stadiums have in common is the fact that they were both designed by the same Glasgow born architect, Archibald Leitch, who lived from the 27th of April 1865 to the 25th of April 1939. And who is most famous for his work designing football stadiums in Scotland, England and Ireland. As a result of the Ibrox disaster of 1902, Leitch's reputation was certainly damaged. And yet after the disaster, he somehow managed to be hired again to build a replacement stand. After this episode, Leittch’s career continued to be successful, leading him to be Britain's foremost football architect. In total, he was commissioned to design part or all of more than 20 stadiums in the UK and Ireland between 1899 and 1939.
A few months ago in Spring 2021, an archaeological dig commenced in Glasgow to uncover the site of the first Hampden Park known as the most significant footballing site in the world. The first Hampden was home to Queen's Park, the oldest association football club in Scotland, and the national team from 1873 to 1884, when it closed due to the building of the Cathcart Circle Railway line. According to Archaeology Scotland, the first Hampden needs to be preserved for future generations as it is the site where the modern passing game was created, setting the template for every subsequent football stadium.
The exact location of the first Hampden has been lost over the years, but it was rediscovered in 2017 when Graeme Brown, the Hampden Bowling club Secretary, discovered a railway map.
Hampden Park is also famously home to the Scottish Football Museum. This great museum exists to promote the unique football heritage in Scotland to build and maintain a national football collection, and to educate and inspire future generations. It holds various collections of football related objects, among which are the FA collection and the Hampden Park collection.
Back in 2009, it was in this museum that Football Memories Scotland started. So Football Memories Scotland is a project, which aims to provide football images, which allow people suffering from Alzheimer's disease or Dementia to reminisce. The project also involves Alzheimer Scotland and Glasgow Caledonian University. Scotland Football's archive has 1000s of images from the history of the game in Scotland. These images can act as memory triggers for people with dementia, and can assist with short term memory recall. The website enables groups throughout Scotland to access the digital collections of the Scottish Football Museum in order to facilitate reminiscence activity.
Our guest today is Robert Harvey, volunteer and area coordinator in Glasgow for Football Memories Scotland, Robert had hosted hundreds of Football Memory groups to help trigger memories. He says that this is much more than just football and we definitely agree. Robert is an ex football player and in the 1970s, played for Clyde FC. He played in all the old grounds and stadiums around Glasgow in a golden period for Scottish football. His debut as a schoolboy was at the National Stadium, Hampden Park, and he scored a goal from 20 yards. It was a Roy of the Rovers moment that lots of school boys dream about. So Robert, welcome to the podcast.

Robert Harvey
Good afternoon, Niall. Thank you.

Niall Murphy
It's a pleasure to have you here Robert. So first off, what can you tell us about Football Memories Scotland? How did it start? And what is your mission?

Robert Harvey
So I should, as you rightly said, it's been going now since around 2009. It started with a gentleman called Michael White, who was a football historian with Falkirk and he was doing this at his local care home in Stenhousemuir. He was doing a football reminiscence session with some old gentlemen, many who had dementia, and he, and he and he had photographs, football photographs, and he was intrigued by the fact that they could recall on many occasions, 7-8-9 players names quite easily. And that intrigued Michael, and also in that group was an old gentleman who was sitting on his own, didn't really take part until one of his friends called him across. A nice gentleman turned out to be one of the inspirations for football memory Scotland. His name was Bill Corbett, and Bill, Bill played, he actually played for Scotland against England, an early 40s at Wembley and he played with Celtic at that same time, but it was the war years and he also played with various other clubs including Falkirk, but a half back line that day at Wembley for nothing each draw was Mark Busby. Famous name, Bill Corbett, and Bill, Bill, Shankly so he used to say "not a bad half, half back line son" which is right right, you know, fantastic.
Anyway, Bill, Bill, this sparked something off with Michael, Michael went back to the historians meeting at Hampden, and he reported back what he had seen. He managed to get as you rightly says, he got caught a couple of historians in Aberdeen and in Edinburgh to run much the same kind of exercise. Again, they get the same results. This was quite a simple process. They got it evaluated with Caledonia University, then something in these gentlemen, these people are remembering things of it not just football, about their life, about the social life, about their families. And from that, that's how it spawns. So it's much more than football, Niall. Sure, it's more than just working with folks with dementia. And before, you know when we actually open to anyone, but say, we seek a lot of folk who are socially, alone or isolated, come along to the meetings. And it couldn't be a more perfect time in history. When this pandemic eventually stops to use these things, to use these things around the city.

Niall Murphy
Yeah, very much. I couldn't agree more with you. So do you think that there is a particular event or place that sparks the most memories of the people you work with it Football Memories Scotland?

Robert Harvey
We've got access to 7000 images from the Football Museum at Hampden. So there's a huge collection there and you can customise any, any session. Being in a care home, being in a football stadium, being in a community setting, you can customise it to the people who are there.
So for example, if have you had someone, and this is, this is a real, real example, we had a gentleman who was a cardiac surgeon, in a care home, big big Motherwell supporter. So we customise the session to Motherwell for him and his family who come along. We've done it for many times for different people. So you can customise it the sessions, as we go along with this, and it's not, it's not just photographs we use, we used memorabilia as well new and all sort of football memory boxes, which are things like all smelling salts, and carbolic soap, and, and things. So at least these types of things help to generate memories.
But the place where most memories are would probably say its Hampden Park and the event that gets the most maybe it triggers the most for the gentlemen, the age groups we see is probably the European Cup final with Real Madrid and Frankfurt which was, it generates, all sorts of stories.
I mean, my dad, my dad was at that game, but so was half a Scotland and to this day it is still the biggest ever crowds for a European Cup final, 127,000 people and not just not far from good, I'm setting just know. The referee was a gentleman called Jack Mowat, famous referee in Scotland, he actually got the train to Hampton, and referee do this famous European Cup final. So that's a big, big event. Yeah.

Niall Murphy
Sure, absolutely. Why do you think that, you know, this does kind of trigger these these memory cues with people?

Robert Harvey
Because it's so deeply ingrained, it is part of their life, you know, it's a big part of people's lives, the social life, it's not easy Niall, and essentially just trying to put a photograph in front of someone and expect a reaction, you've got to work at it as a volunteer. And the key thing for a volunteer, you don't need to be a historian. You don't need to know a lot about football, you do not need to be smart, and just throw a lot of figures and facts that people ask the last thing you want to do. What you're looking for all the time as those triggers and listening to the answers. So that's the key thing for the volunteer. Because when you think about it, this is such a privilege. When everyone in Glasgow has got a story, every face that you see has got a story. And it's such a privilege for us to be allowed, for example, to get into a care home, you're actually going to someone's home. So to sit there, you've got to treat everything with total respect, and listen and work hard to find the image. And many teams image will not be football, that will be something surrounding, and maybe the weather and make the school, it may be a building, it can be 101 different things.

Niall Murphy
Right. Okay. Going back to football, how much do you think that as a collective experience? When you've got all these people being grouped together shaped people's lives in Glasgow?

Robert Harvey
Wow, definitely. The answer to that, a lot of folks; lives are shaped by that. This collective thing really appeals to me. I've seen it time and time again, this collective experience. If someone is struggling a little bit, you know, someone struggling at a meeting for whatever reason, someone beside them may know something, and they will join in, and they will become part of it and they will help people along to help them remember. So the collective side of this is powerful. And every, every football memories meeting is a collective experience. It's not a host sitting there telling you about football that's not what it's about. It's the collective group, you know, sharing, sharing and helping people and there's nothing. Everyone needs a badge of honour in their life. Every person you talk to needs to be known for something, he is good that history, he is good. She's really good at baking a cake, whatever it may be Niall, everyone needs to be known for something and one of the biggest compliments you could probably gets helping collective thinking would be Oh, he's a football man. He's a Rangers man, he's a Celtic man, he is a Clyde man, certainly in Glasgow it happens. And if you think about it, for example, where Clyde is down at Shawfield there, that whole area was the Gorbals. Yeah, and they were flooded with fans who supported their local teams, and it also happened into other places as well.

Niall Murphy
Right. That brings me straight on to my next question, which has to do with identity and how much do you think people's identities in Glasgow were shaped by identifying or belonging to a specific team or club?

Robert Harvey
I don't think you can get away from me from that question. You're, you become, you become part of your surroundings. And you certainly become part of the social group you're involved in, your social group in football tends to be with people who, who support the team you support or vice versa.
So, Glasgow is. I mean, there's a lot of cities across the world obviously with this huge fierce rivalry, you know, you think you're either or Milan or Buenos Aires or whoever's, and football is a serious business when you think about it. We've had examples in the world where a good example would be Pele' who actually stopped a civil war in Nigeria for three days for he was playing football in Nigeria.
And yes, see, the yeah, when the team Santos of Brazil went to tour in Nigeria, in the 60s, there was a civil war going on. But the war lords decided to have a ceasefire for a few days to go to the football.
I mean, I don't, I don't remember a ceasefire in Glasgow to be truthful, but I can understand how it's not just Glasgow, it's other people have this fierce fierce loyalty to the teams.

Niall Murphy
Okay. Do you think that kind of that influence and that loyalty is deeper in Glasgow than when compared to other cities? And if yes, why do you think that might be the case?

Robert Harvey
No, I don't think so. I mean, that so it's very polite, we all know the political and religious connotations in Glasgow, we live here, can't avoid it. You can't avoid it, you can't swing a cat without someone having an opinion on it a strong opinion on it. But I do see that but the same in many other places around the world, Niall, you know as I said earlier on some people just take things to the extreme you know we there's lots of examples of that you know we know of players in South America you know being killed for example after World Cups because they scored a wee goal, you know yeah, we know that the 1938 World Cup final Italy was playing and they got a wee note from Mussolini, basically saying "You better not loose this World Cup Final" and I think for the players, you know it is a serious business.

Niall Murphy
You just have to see what happened in the other day with, with the England- Italy match in Euro 2020 Yeah, the reaction on social media to the players score in the penalties or not penalties as the case may be. Yeah…

Robert Harvey
So social media has changed everything the world has changed because because of that, do you know Yeah, unfortunate.

Niall Murphy
Yeah, yes. Yeah. Okay, turning to the actual, the architecture and the buildings. How much do you think, that the stadiums as buildings contribute to the atmosphere and excitement as this kind of collective experience of a football match?

Robert Harvey
100%! They contribute to the game, there's nothing worse for a football or if you're played on an area with nobody in the stadium, the terraces are 50 yards away from you, there is a big space round about it, that, that's that's, that's good for no one, the other side to that is you know, you have the closer you get the fines to the, to the to the actual pitch, the better the atmosphere, you hear some professional players will send the big games that the noise, the atmosphere you know the amplification right about the stadium dependent wherever they are, can add a yard of pace to the game, so that can add, that can actually influence the game on the pitch and make and make players quicker and of course you get you get things like you know, you don't want spaces around the corners of stadiums and noise get out the way you want to all enclosed as best you can. You probably want to good fan zones where you can really get a focus you're gonna see examples of that in Glasgow obviously we are that's that's what all the noise comes from.
And of course, Glasgow had the famous Hampden Roar in order for you look at the shape of the old Hampden, you know it was said it scared people, are scared players and that's documented.
So that, that really that, that shape contributed to that and the shape of the stadium. And even, even, nowadays Niall what you can do. If you were starting tomorrow, you're going to build a new stadium along the road from where you live, you can go into UEFA website and there is a 100 page document now on how to build a modern stadium and all the things to consider. So 100% it contributes to the actual game itself.

Niall Murphy
Right. Okay. Okay, next question is kind of loaded. So, as I am sure you are aware, Irish historian Ged O'Brien, who's the founder of the Scottish Football Museum is on a mission to prove that Scotland invented football, with a campaign which is #ScotlandFoundedFotball. What is your opinion of it?

Robert Harvey
I hope he's successful. I hope he's very successful. Ged has actually came to, he actually spoke at one of our meetings for us and tremendously, well researched, very passionate about it. I think he's done so much as other people have as well. To kind of bring that to the fore, get that story out there. Even get folks starting to think about it. And as you start to think about it, who knows what is around the corner for us? But yes, it's an important question to, to answer, actually, and and there's nothing worse if you get to, you know, fake news about where the origins of football are, which maybe, maybe some folk think that some of the things I've heard recently have been fake. So yeah, I absolutely wish him every success. I've done the demo the tours myself to Hampden, I have taken lots of friends, though. So we've walked around, everyone has kind of taken aback by the story. And not that mile of Glasgow it is just something special.

Niall Murphy
Sure. If Ged could prove it, that Scotland was were football invented? What would that mean to you?

Robert Harvey
As someone who's a great lover of football, I think it'd be a great thing for Glasgow, to be, to be recognised globally as a home of football it is such a big thing to have that. I would love that a define something there that really, really makes the argument null and void. It's just there. Yeah, I think I think most football lovers would like him to be successful and what he's going to do here.

Niall Murphy
Okay, right. Well, the other big thing that's happening just now is the archaeological dig is happening in the Southside of Glasgow to uncover the site of the first Hampden Park, the original Hampden Park and the world's first purpose built international football stadium.
So to give some of our listeners some background to this, the first Hampden Park was opened in 1873, and was the home to Queen's Park Football Club, and the Scottish National Football team until 1884, when it closed for the construction of the Cathcart Circle Railway line. So and it was this stadium, which witnessed some of Scotland's greatest victories, such as Scotland's 5-1 win over England in 1882. And all that is recorded, if you look at the back of Hampden Park bowling club, as the train passes, you can see this fantastic mural, which records all of this. So my question to you on the back of this what, what did you think could be the most amazing object they could find in the dig?

Robert Harvey
Oh, what the question, you know, I bet imagine he could run riot with that question. Oh, my goodness.
I think you probably, probably a foundation stone, you know, a foundation stone, it would say something like the home of football, you know, something it's, you know, been inscribed with some engraved or something like that.
But I've also, I mean, they're going to hopefully find things like, maybe part of the original plane surface, maybe the lines, maybe the old team bath, maybe maybe there was 12,000 people at some of the games across there. So you might find all sorts of interesting artefacts thrown about that.
Maybe a bit nice of the found something from the English, that says, acknowledging that Scotland is the home of football, that would really kill it, really kill the argument. I think I've been a bit optimistic there. But I'd love something like that. And I also think it would be nice given.
I know that the time you're talking about here was was the reign of Queen Victoria, and she she was a great she was a great wordsmith, she used to write daily, lots of, thousands of words. And I would love, I would love if they could find maybe a letter from Queen Victoria. Just the acknowledging Scotland as the home of football.

Niall Murphy
Well, we'll have to see for that one. Yeah. Okay, kind of related. Then if you could travel back in time. Which Scottish match would you like to attend? In which stadium and why?

Robert Harvey
Yeah, I'm going to give you two here. I'm gonna give you quickly. You mentioned that later on. I played my first game as a football player at Hampden Park. I was a schoolboy. So I would love to get back to that because all happened so quick. Was just just a force just for me. I was basically given, it was New Year's Day, I was given a phone call by the manager to turn up at Hampden with my boots. I turned up at Hampden with my boots, I was playing the game and as you rightly said, I scored very, very early with that without without quite a long shot. So I like to see that again and be there because I don't remember too much.
Maybe Secondly, I would like to go back to 1955 I would like to go to the Scottish Cup final Clyde against Celtic, that was the first day Cup final it was televised in Scotland. There was over 100,000 people at it a the referee was amazing Mr. Charlie Faultless, which is a great name for a referee I think Charlie Faultless. And the last, the last minute, in the last couple of minutes of the game, Archie Robertson scored a corner kick to equalise, you know, that's the only time a corner kicks are in score direct in a Scottish Cup final. And Archie was actually, a big influence in my life when I was younger.
So I'd like to go back and see see him play, that game finish one each. We meet many, many men from Glasgow, who we were at that game who also went to the replay on Wednesday at Hampden, a wet Wednesday. But there's only there was only 68,000 at that game, only 68,000. And they can remember as clear as day so I would like to see.

Niall Murphy
Okay, two very interesting memories. And the first one being particularly personal as well, I can totally understand why you'd want to relive that must have been such an amazing experience. Okay, so we have a final question for you, which again, is a completely loaded question. And we ask everybody who comes to our podcast, this question. So it is what is your favourite building in Glasgow? And what? And what would it tell you if its walls could talk?

Robert Harvey
That there's going to be too quickly here? My first one is a building it's as half in Glasgow and half in Rutherglen. Okay. And Shawfield Stadium still up to this day, yeah, I love the the old gates the Art Deco steel gets a lot the whole parameter right on the river Clyde, I love the old building beside it, which is Art Deco. And if the walls could talk about it, I’d love the walls to tell us what Billy McNeill who was one of the most famous footballers of his generation
across Europe, why he thought the first night he walked on the training pitch the Thursday night, and the dogs were just starting the racing.

Niall Murphy
So okay..

Robert Harvey
So that's, that's true. That's what used to happen. So Billy would have, I don't know what he thought… it's a long way from Lisbon to Shawfield.

Niall Murphy
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much for sharing that, Robert. That's very, very much appreciated. And thank you as well for being such a great guest and such a good sport on the podcast as well it is ,it’s, it's really very much appreciated. And for our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share. And don't forget to follow #fGlasgowsWallsCouldTalk. So thank you very much again, Robert. It's been very much appreciated.

Robert Harvey
Thank you very much.

The following message was submitted by a member of the public, if you want to leave a message about your opinions, memories and thoughts about Glasgow’s historic built environment have a look at our website to find out how.

One of my favourite memory of going to a match in Glasgow is walking up to Celtic Park with my oldest son for the first time. My mother and my best pal were also with us to make it even more special.

Glasgow City Heritage Trust is an independent charity and grant funder that promotes the understanding, appreciation and conservation of Glasgow's historic built environment. Do you want to know more? Have a look at our website at glasgowheritage.org.uk and follow us on social media @GlasgowHeritage. This podcast was produced by Inner Ear for Glasgow City Heritage Trust. This podcast is kindly sponsored by the National Trust for Scotland and supported by Tunnock’s.