Hampden Bowling Club is a founding member of the Glasgow Bowling Association and was an early winner of the Glasgow Bowls Title.
But it’s not only bowls which it has a long and proud history. We are on the site of the 1st Hampden Park. This was home for Queens Park FC and the Scotland International Football Team from 1874 to 1884 and is one of the secrets of the sporting world. We are looking for everyone with an interest in our national heritage to be part of the restoration of arguably the most important football building in the world and the surrounding grounds, including Kingsley Gardens.
We have run three campaigns since 2017. The first one is the #Restore1stHampden campaign (restoring the pavilion and grounds), which we kicked off in 2017 and is the foundation of everything we do. The site of the 1st Hampden had been lost through history until Graeme Brown, Club Secretary of the Bowling Club, located proof through a search of the National Records of Scotland in 2017. Off the back of this, we kicked off the campaign to restore it. Here is our #Restore1stHampden campaign video:
In 2018, we started the #KeepHampdenRoaring Campaign to save the 3rd Hampden and created the Hampden Collection in parallel. This campaign focused on the history and the benefits to Glasgow of the current National Stadium and not going to Murrayfield.
In 2019, we are doing the #1stHampdenMural and is our first big step in marking the site (Ashley Rawson who designed the mural is a neighbour of the Bowling Club and is our Artist in Residence).