Weeds push through cracked concrete steps. Kids in five-a-side kits chase a ball across the same turf where 50,000 fans once roared through Rangers and Celtic derbies. Cathkin Park, tucked into the Crosshill area of Glasgow’s southside, is one of British football’s great ruins — a stadium frozen in the moment its last senior tenant, Third Lanark A.C., collapsed in 1967.
This guide covers the ground’s two lives as Queen’s Park’s ‘second Hampden’ and then Third Lanark’s home, why it earned the nickname ‘the ghosts of Cathkin Park,’ its scheduled monument status since September 2025, the ongoing legal fight over public access, what still happens there today, and exactly how to visit.
Quick Answer
Cathkin Park is a former football stadium turned free public park in Crosshill, Glasgow. It hosted Queen’s Park F.C. as the second Hampden Park from 1884 to 1903, then Third Lanark A.C. until the club folded in 1967. The site is open access year-round, with visible terracing remains, and has been protected since 24 September 2025 as a Historic Environment Scotland scheduled monument (reference SM13799).
From Hampden Park to New Cathkin Park
The land first rose to prominence as Queen’s Park F.C.’s second Hampden Park, opened in 1884 after the club was displaced from its original ground by railway expansion. The first match there, on 18 October 1884, drew around 7,000 spectators for a goalless draw with Dumbarton. Over the next two decades it functioned as Scotland’s de facto national stadium, staging seven Scottish Cup finals (1885–1899) plus two replays, nine full Scotland internationals, and even a rugby international in 1896.
Confusingly, this wasn’t Third Lanark’s first Cathkin Park. The club, founded in 1872 by the Third Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers, had already played on a separate ground of the same name a short distance away since its founding. When Queen’s Park moved to the present-day Hampden Park in 1903, Third Lanark took over the old second Hampden site, rebuilt it, and reopened it in 1904 as New Cathkin Park — the ground that survives today.
Third Lanark’s Years at Cathkin
Third Lanark won the Scottish First Division title in their first season at the rebuilt ground, 1903–04, and lifted the Scottish Cup in 1905. The natural slope of the site gave the terracing its distinctive crescent shape, funnelling crowds past 50,000 for derby fixtures against Rangers and Celtic and setting the ground’s record attendance of 51,518.
Cathkin Park’s role went beyond league football. Boxing legend Benny Lynch fought there on several occasions, the ground hosted athletics meetings, and it served as a gathering place for Glasgow’s Jewish community in the early twentieth century — a reminder that grounds like this doubled as neighbourhood civic space, not just football venues.
How Third Lanark Collapsed
Third Lanark’s demise wasn’t simple financial bad luck. A Board of Trade investigation into the 1967 liquidation found that chairman Bill Hiddleston controlled every club appointment personally, that players were sometimes paid late and in coins rather than notes, that away-match travel was left to the players themselves, and that corruption extended even to defrauding the club’s own lottery.
The final competitive match, a 3–3 draw with Queen of the South on 25 April 1967, drew just 325 spectators. A junior cup final on 13 May 1967 was the last football match played there that year, closing well over 80 years of senior football on the site.
Why It’s Called ‘The Ghosts of Cathkin Park’
After 1967, Glasgow City Council blocked attempts to sell the land for development and designated it for recreational use instead, but the old terracing embankments and sections of crumbling concrete stand were simply left in place. Decades of foliage, football historians, and urban explorers gave the ground its haunting reputation, later cemented in Michael McEwan’s book The Ghosts of Cathkin Park: The Inside Story of Third Lanark’s Demise.
Today the site’s mix of overgrown terraces, an active five-a-side pitch, and near-total silence is what draws photographers and groundhoppers from across the world — a genuinely atmospheric, time-capsule stadium rather than a themed attraction.
A Scheduled Monument Since September 2025
On 24 September 2025, Historic Environment Scotland designated Cathkin Park a scheduled monument (SM13799), giving it the same legal protection as Scotland’s other nationally important historic sites. HES cited it as a rare, largely intact example of a late-19th/early-20th-century Scottish football ground, with surviving earthwork terracing, concrete barrier walls, and buried structural remains that have never been modernised.
‘Scotland is recognised as a pioneering nation in the development of football, and Cathkin Park played a key part in that story,’ said Dara Parsons, HES’s Head of Designations. Scottish Football Museum founder Ged O’Brien called it ‘a living monument to Scotland’s influence on many stadiums around the world.’ This is a separate designation from the buried remains of the first Hampden pavilion in nearby Kingsley Gardens, a site that sits roughly a mile away and was recognised independently.
The Fight to Keep Cathkin Park Open
Cathkin Park’s public status hasn’t gone unchallenged. Glasgow City Council granted the Jimmy Johnstone Charitable Trust a lease and approved plans for a 3-metre security fence around the main pitch, despite strong public objection. Local resident Gregory Brown brought a judicial review arguing the fence breached the public’s statutory access rights under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, Scotland’s ‘right to roam’ law. In August 2024, Lord Sandison ruled in Brown’s favour, finding the council’s planning decision unlawful.
The council and Trust then tried a different route, obtaining a certificate confirming a slightly shorter, 1.99-metre fence could go ahead without planning permission under permitted-development rules. Brown challenged that certificate too in a second judicial review; in 2025 Lord Sandison upheld the council’s certificate on narrow planning-law grounds, while noting that separate legal protections for public access were not thereby resolved. The Trust subsequently sought a court exemption to allow a permanent fence, with a Glasgow Sheriff Court hearing on the dispute taking place in July 2026. As of now, no fence has permanently closed off the pitch and the park remains open to the public — but the underlying tension between securing a community football pitch and preserving unrestricted access to a scheduled monument is still working its way through the courts.
Cathkin Park Today: Five-a-Side, Cycle Speedway & Volunteers
Cathkin Park isn’t a museum piece; it’s a working park. The old pitch hosts regular five-a-side football, while a cycle speedway track near the Myrtle Park Road entrance — built in the 1970s and revived by volunteers after a dormant spell — is now one of only a handful still active in Scotland and stages regional and national races through the season.
A community group, Friends of Cathkin Park, runs periodic litter-picks and maintenance days focused on the historic terracing, and welcomes new volunteers. Combined with the overgrown stands and the self-guided walk around the old crescent of terracing, it’s this everyday mix of heritage and recreation — not a roped-off exhibit — that gives the site its atmosphere.
Planning Your Visit
Cathkin Park sits at Florida Avenue, Crosshill, Glasgow, G42 8XG, in the city’s southside. The easiest route is by train: Crosshill station, on the Cathcart Circle line, is roughly a five-minute walk away along Cathcart Road. Several bus routes along Pollokshaws Road and Nithsdale Drive also stop within easy walking distance. There’s no dedicated car park at the ground itself; visitors driving tend to use on-street parking on the surrounding residential streets, so arrive respectfully and avoid blocking resident access.
As a public park under Scotland’s right-to-roam access rights, Cathkin Park has no entry fee and no set opening hours or ticket gate — it’s open for informal access during daylight, like any city park, though the five-a-side pitch and cycle speedway track may be in organised use at times. For the latest on the site’s protected status, Historic Environment Scotland’s Cathkin Park announcement is the most authoritative official source.
For upper-deck seats. Watch line play at the stadium, or the far side of the park from the top of a lift hill.
Sherpa-lined and windproof, with a waterproof back for wet bleachers. Folds into its own pouch.
For late-season football, outdoor hockey and October park nights. Shake, pocket, and stay warm for hours.
Cathkin Park FAQs
Where is Cathkin Park?
It’s in Crosshill, on Glasgow’s southside, at Florida Avenue, Glasgow G42 8XG — about a five-minute walk from Crosshill railway station on the Cathcart Circle line.
Is Cathkin Park free to visit?
Yes. It’s a public park with no entry fee, no tickets, and no fixed opening hours — you can walk the grounds and terracing at any reasonable time, as with any Glasgow city park.
Is Cathkin Park the same as Hampden Park?
Not the current Hampden. Cathkin Park was the ‘second Hampden Park,’ used by Queen’s Park F.C. from 1884 to 1903 before the club moved to today’s Hampden Park. Third Lanark then rebuilt the site and renamed it New Cathkin Park in 1904.
Can you still see the old terracing at Cathkin Park?
Yes — overgrown earthwork terracing, crumbling concrete barrier walls, and the crescent shape of the old stand are all still visible, which is why Historic Environment Scotland scheduled the site as a protected monument in September 2025.
What happened to Third Lanark?
Third Lanark Athletic Club folded in 1967 after a Board of Trade investigation found serious financial mismanagement by chairman Bill Hiddleston, including late wage payments and defrauding the club’s own lottery. Their final match drew only 325 fans.
Is there a fence around the Cathkin Park pitch now?
As of now, no permanent fence has gone up. Plans for a security fence around the main pitch have been fought through multiple judicial reviews since 2024 over public right-to-roam access, with a Glasgow Sheriff Court hearing on the issue held in July 2026; the park remains publicly open while the dispute continues.
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