Back in the summer as Editor of The Celtic Star, I took possession of a few large bags containing an assortment of photographs of Celtic Park and the club’s old training ground at Barrowfields. These photographs were in print and slide format and had been essentially forgotten about until their owner, former Celtic Director Tom Grant was clearing out his loft as he prepared to move house.
Previously I’d met up with Tom just before lockdown kicked in as he wanted me to share with the Celtic support the images of the three sides of Celtic Park, the Jungle, the Celtic End and the Rangers End being demolished and in their place the three magnificent stands built by Fergus McCann to provide Celtic with a 60,000 capacity stadium, crucially with a 10,000 seating capacity advantage over Ibrox. Fergus knew exactly what he was doing.
Those photographs were very popular on The Celtic Star during lockdown and we’ll add them on to the end of this series for those who missed them the first time around.
A month or two ago The Celtic Star published some of the new photographs, mostly covering the work done during the Centenary season to add the current frontage to the old Main stand. The old Board, rightly, comes in for plenty of stick yet they changed the face of Celtic Park by undertaking this work and Fergus made the vast majority of changes with the three stands that he built, with Tom Grant working as Stadium Director for The Bunnet.
Contrast that with the past few decades where we’ve had the introduction of the standing area and the installation of disco lights. The steel used in the Main Stand is approaching a hundred years old and plans will sooner rather than later have to be brought forward to replace the Main Stand which for many of the season ticket holders in Main Stand, outside of the prawn sandwich sections, seems long overdue.
Anyway getting back to the photographs, it took several months and not inconsiderable expense to digitalise all these photos. We could have selected the best one and it would have been easier and indeed cheaper but the entire collection adds up to an important part of Celtic’s history. So every photograph is important and deserves to be included. We’ll run these in batches of 50 starting this evening and publish two batches per day. We’ll include five photos per page, which will go some way to allowing us top recoup the costs involved. And a few folk have asked about making a contribution towards the costs, with the easiest way to do that is order a copy of Majic, Stan and the King of Japan from Celtic Star Books.
Today I’ve had to block and delete all sorts of comments from the other side in the city, their usual perverse fascination, which says more about them as a support than us. However their insults regarding the old Celtic Park – dear heavens have they no shame? Everyone who went to a game at the old Celtic Park made it home and may those who never made it across the city, rest in peace.
Here are the first 50 photographs. Another two batches of 50 to follow tomorrow morning and then later in the day. Hope you enjoy!
Thanks for the fab pics. But you’ve got to date them surely. HH.