Hampden Bowling Club sits on the 1st Hampden Park built in 1873 and until 2017 no one believed us. This is the worlds first purposefully built international football ground and where the modern passing game of football was invented.
It is also where some of the greatest victories for Scotland were recorded. Remarkably the original pavilion is still intact and our Artist in Residence, Ashley Rawson, has created a mural depicting Scotland’s victory over England in 1881, one of the six international victories on this ground. This mural will be painted on the pavilion rear wall.
This design includes two legends of the Scottish game. Andrew Watson,who played in that game and went onto Captain Scotland in later games, was the world’s first black international footballer. Furthermore, it includes Charles Campbell, one of the grand architects of the Scottish game and one of Scotland’s greatest midfielders. This research was completed by our Chief Historian, Ged O’Brien, who has extensively researched the life of Andrew Watson and the wider Scottish game. He is one of the foremost sports historians anywhere to be found and built the Scottish National Football Museum at 3rd Hampden.
This mural will be seen by around 200k people per week, as the bowling club rear wall faces the Cathcart District Railway, as well as being seen from the adjacent Cathcart Road. Our prestigious history will never be lost again.
The 118th anniversary of this historic fixture was Monday 11th March 2019, where the our campaign launched the crowdfunding page to raise the necessary funds to complete the work. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this amazing project with the final tally being £3,315!
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On Sunday 9th September 2019 we achieved our mission and announced the completion of the #1stHampdenMural:
Here is our finale of our most important and ground-breaking project. 1st Hampden is now on the map