The Grosvenor Restaurant – A Celtic Landmark That You’ve Almost Certainly Walked Past Without Knowing It

The Grosvenor Restaurant is a Celtic landmark that hides in plain sight – located at 72-80 Gordon Street, Glasgow, G1 3TA (just opposite Glasgow Central train station).

As well as having a big Celtic connection, this landmark has an incredible history of its own. The Grosvenor Building was designed by one of Glasgow’s premier architects, Alexander Thomson, as a commercial warehouse with shops below for Alexander & George Thomson. It was built in 1859-61 at a cost of £14,900. It burnt down shortly after completion but was rebuilt to the original design in 1864-66.

It was again altered by Clarke & Bell in 1897-99 to create the Grosvenor Restaurant but was gutted by fire just two years later. When rebuilt in 1907 by J H Craigie of Clarke, Bell & Craigie – a winner, fittingly, of the Alexander Thomson travelling scholarship – he added a further two storeys.

On the ground floor were bars and tea-rooms. Its huge marble staircase led to the restaurant and function rooms. For years it was the centre of upmarket nightlife in Glasgow. Sadly, when tastes changed, the marble staircase was ripped out, with bits of the ornate stonework snapped up by people, particularly brides and grooms who had walked up and down it.

The face of the old Grosvenor Restaurant

The Grosvenor Restaurant was opened and owned by the McKillop brothers (William and John). The pair were founding fathers of Celtic Football Club and had commenced a business venture as licensed grocers in the city some years earlier. The grocer’s business was a success, enabling William to buy the Royal Restaurant on West Nile Street and the two to open the highly popular Grosvenor Restaurant in 1899.

On Wednesday 15 June 1938, the Grosvenor Restaurant would be the venue for the Golden Jubilee Dinner as Celtic celebrated their 50th year. In many ways, the event would signal the end of the Willie Maley era and the Manager was gifted 2500 guineas (50 guineas for each year of service) by the club’s directors for 50 years of service to the Celts. The board had expected Maley to take the hint and stand aside, but he did nothing of the sort until, following a row over who would pay the tax on his Jubilee gift, Maley would depart a couple of years later on less than amicable terms.

The Jubilee dinner itself was attended by representatives of football in England, Scotland and Ireland. Presided over by Chairman, Tom White, the following trophies were on display throughout the banquet: 1902 British League Cup, the Glasgow Charity Cup, the shield presented to Celtic by the SFA for winning six league titles in a row, and the Empire Exhibition Cup which had been won the previous week.

Sir John T Cargill, Honorary President of Rangers, proposed a toast to “The Irish Club”. He had done likewise at Rangers’ Jubilee dinner in the previous decade and expressed great pride at this fact, owing to the rivalry yet brilliant matches that he had seen between Glasgow’s two biggest clubs.

Cargill said: “Celtic was founded in 1888 by Brother Walfrid, a Marist Brother, who, along with other clergymen in the East End of Glasgow, ran free breakfasts for the poor people of that area. In 1887 the Hibs had won the Scottish Cup, and Brother Walfrid and Mr. John Glass came to the conclusion that it would be a good thing to start an Irish team in Glasgow to raise funds for the free breakfasts. That was the start of the club and it had nobly done the work that was begun 50 years ago.

“Celtic Football Club was an Irish club, and one of the great characteristics of the Irish race was not only their generosity and large-heartedness but they were the greatest sportsmen in the world. They took an interest in every sport and played every sport magnificently as only Irishmen could. Those men did not know much about football and they called in experts, the brothers Maley. Tom, who was a schoolmaster, played for Partick Thistle, Third Lanark and Hibernians. Mr. William Maley was a junior then. He started off in 1888 as Match Secretary to Celtic, he played for them and is still going strong.

“Celtic thought they could do what Hibernians had done, but they also thought they would get some assistance from Hibernians, and they secured five of their players. They also got two of the famous Renton. They started off by beating Rangers 5-2 and then they went to the final of the Scottish Cup to be beaten by Third Lanark. So on for 50 years, more or less, at the top of the tree are the Celtic, a wonderful club that you can all be proud of.

“When one looks back over the players of those 50 years, one thinks of names like Doyle, McMahon, Kelly, Quinn, Hay, Young, McMenemy, Somers, Adams, McNally, Gallacher, Shaw, Dodds, and poor John Thomson, who laid his life down for his club; McGonagle, the brothers McStay, McFarlane, and the great McGrory, who holds the record for goals in first class football – 540.”

Willie Maley

Referring to the management of the club, Sir John said: “Mr. White has been for 30 years a member and 20 years Chairman. He has also been the President of the SFA. He has brought to the football world a delightfully breezy manner which makes him and the club so popular. Celtic still have the oldest member of the club, Mr. Tom Colgan, who has been for 34 years a member of the committee and is still going strong. Then the Celtic have Mr. Maley, who answers the description, in a way, of a strong but not silent man. He is a strong man with strong views, but one needs that to succeed as a manager of a football club.

“I wish continued success for an unlimited number of years and so long as the game of association football is played, the Celtic club will be looked up to, respected and loved by the followers of the game.”

Before the toast was honoured, the company sang a heartfelt rendition of The Dear Little Shamrock.

Tom White briefly acknowledged the toast and thanked Sir John for his “eloquent tribute to the club.” When talking about Willie Maley, White said: “The club Manager celebrated his 70th birthday the other day and of those 70 years, 50 have been spent in the service of the Celtic club. It would be very unmindful of what we owe him if we didn’t mark the occasion by making him some form of presentation. The triumphs of the Celtic club are the triumphs of Mr. Maley, whose life has been indissolubly allied to Celtic. In these 50 years he has carried out his managerial duties in a wonderful manner. He has reared his own players, blended them, and moulded them into a specific style of footballer, the equal of anything in the whole country. He has blazed a trail of football round the continent and in America. Everywhere he has gone he has been received with the courtesy and attention shown to the ambassadors of his country. The name of Maley is synonymous with the Celtic club and almost with the name of soccer.

“He has also done a great deal of work for football generally. He was a legislator for many years, and his advice was warmly accepted by members of leagues and associations in these islands. As a token of respect and regard we have for many years for Mr. Maley, I would like to present him with a cheque for 2500 guineas.”

The site of the Grosvenor Restaurant today

Upon accepting the gift, Willie Maley thanked Tom White for the many nice things that he had said about him and to the company for their nice sentiments about the club. Maley then said that this was the greatest day of his life and as such he should thank the almighty God for his guidance and goodness over the last 70 years, in particular the last 50 years with Celtic. The great man then remarked: “During my long connection with the club this is the first benefit that I have received and I am indebted to the Board for making it worthy of the great occasion and of the Celtic club, who have always done things in a big way.”

“Celtic started off their first year doing what no other Scottish club has done – playing in the Scottish Cup Final,” Maley added. He continued: “We were the first club to extend our ground for international attendance purposes. Celtic were also pioneers in the installation of telegraphic accommodation for the press. We were the first team to visit the continent, and also the first club to build a double decker stand for the convenience of spectators. In addition, Celtic were the first club to play two games in one day – and won both.”

There was laughter all around the room when Maley said: “Celtic led the way in bringing to Scotland all the athletic stars of the world, and did so for many years; we were the first team to have a strike, and to join with another famous club to create the first riot at a final!”

Maley closed his speech in fascinating style: “Words cannot fully express my feelings. All I can say is what I have done for Celtic in the past I would gladly do again. It has been a labour of love and I hope when I am gone my successor will lend the same enthusiasm and love of the club, which has almost been a craze with me.

“I must say that it is regrettable that the last surviving member of the founding committee, Mr. Joseph Nelis, has been unable to attend due to illness. We do, however, have with us, two of our oldest enthusiasts, Dr. Scanlan and Mrs. Arthur Murphy, who have been with us from the very beginning.

“On such an occasion we cannot forget the men who started the Celtic on its grand career and did so much work for it in the early years. Two names cannot be forgotten – Brother Walfrid, the founder of the club, and John Glass, his lieutenant and the Celtic President for many years. Without these two men the club would never have survived in the early days as the funds were low and the opposition of a section of the public was very strong. Both men were fighters and so the club gradually found its feet, achieved success in the first year and that led to the heights of later years. There are of course many more men who also helped in the good work and to those old timers, the names of John H McLaughlin, Frank McErlean, Tom Maley, James McKay, Hugh Darroch, Dr Conway, William McKillop, Michael Hughes, Joseph Shaughnessy, John McKillop, Dan Molloy, James Curtis and John O’Hare will revive memories.”

This story features in The Holy Grounds of Glasgow Celtic: A Guide To Celtic Landmarks & Sites Of Interest.

About Author

Hailing from an Irish background, I grew up on the English south coast with the good fortune to begin watching Celtic during the Martin O'Neill era. I have written four Celtic books since the age of 19: Our Stories & Our Songs: The Celtic Support, Take Me To Your Paradise: A History Of Celtic-Related Incidents & Events, Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys: Celtic's Founding Fathers, First Season & Early Stars, and The Holy Grounds of Glasgow Celtic: A Guide To Celtic Landmarks & Sites Of Interest. These were previously sold in Waterstones and official Celtic FC stores, and are now available on Amazon.

3 Comments

  1. David Potter on

    Good stuff, Liam!
    Pity the eventual departure was not so good, but I tend to think that Willie was losing it a little by that time. But what a man!

  2. Peter Broughan on

    An excellent retelling of an excellent story.

    The Grosvenor was also closely connected to Drumchapel Amateurs Football Club, in the form of Reid’s Tea Rooms as the restaurant eventually became.

    DAFC was founded in 1950 by Douglas Smith whose family business was the engineering company Arnott Young. Smith eventually oversaw its conversion into a highly successful shipbreaking business.

    Smith was committed to the game, and to encouraging young Glasgow footballing talent. He ran several teams, if memory serves perhaps 4 of different age groups, and we all had to turn up at lunchtime in Reid’s Tea-room in that Grosvenor building after playing for our respective schools in the morning. School uniform was essential.

    I played for the Drum for a few years from about 1965, and I remember the incredible feeling of being treated like a valued adult for the first time in my life in those splendiferous surroundings. We all chose our meals and wondered at the surroundings before heading off to play at Maryhill Juniors or Duntocher Hibs or the black ash of Drumchapel (“The Dump”). Smith leased these grounds himself for the club’s use.

    Smith also paid for every one of those meals in Reid’s himself, and covered all the other costs of the club.

    Players around in my day (and a few a bit before) included Sir Alex Ferguson, Archie Gemmill, Asa Hartford, John Wark and Paul Wilson. My goalkeeping friend and rival, Davie McWilliams, was in goals for Airdrie in Big Billy’s last game in the hoops in the Scottish Cup Final of 1975, which I watched from the North Enclosure.

    Douglas Smith was born on August 1, 1927, and died February 25, 2004. He deserves a place in the Scottish Football Hall of Fame, alongside so many of his protegees.

    Where others now routinely take millions out of the game for themselves he put his own passion and money into it. He should be recognised for encouraging the stars (and the lesser lights too) before they became the gods we worshipped.