G is for Glasgow GREEN

Long before there was a Hampden Park, Kelvin Hall or an Emirates Arena, Glasgow Green was where the city came to play and compete. Gifted to the people of Glasgow in 1450, it is the oldest public park in Scotland and has long been a focus for public gatherings. Over the years, it has played host to the Glasgow Fair, numerous shows, the odd public execution, political protests, military training and music events. However, its long-standing role in nurturing the city's diverse range of sports is often overlooked.

As a large, relatively flat piece of ground positioned close to the river and town centre, it is little wonder that it became a focus for sports. There are records of foot races around the Green dating back to 1675, the town's first formally constituted sports club - Glasgow Golf Club - was established on the Green in 1787, using a 7-hole course and commandeering the Herd's House as a clubhouse. Bowling, tennis, archery, boxing, football, hockey, shinty, cycling, cricket and many more sports have all found a home on the green at one time or another.

By the mid-1800s, interest in all sports was growing exponentially, and Glasgow Green was the city's epicentre of games and recreation. Many clubs shared members across several sports and would switch from rowing in the summer months to football, athletics or boxing over the winter to keep themselves fit, try out new sports and develop new skills. Glasgow Green was particularly fertile ground for sporting crossover.

Glasgow Rangers Football Club were founded in 1872. One of the first of the Rangers' greats was Tom Vallance, from Cardross. He came to football via the Clyde Rowing Club. He was also in the Clydesdale Harriers. His pals were the McNeil brothers, Henry, Moses and Peter - Henry played for Queen's Park FC, and Moses and Peter founded Rangers. The Harriers also contained the Maley brothers: Willie and Tom. They co-founded Celtic Football Club in 1887.

There is still some dispute as to whether Clyde or Clydesdale ARC were most instrumental in forming Rangers FC, though the truth likely lies in a mix of the two. An early team photograph of Rangers FC in 1877 shows players in their original team strip, which featured a six-pointed star on the jersey – the traditional badge of Clyde ARC, still in use today. This suggests a potential connection between the clubs in the early days. There are also tantalising hints that Clydesdale ARC had some hand in the clubs formation. Club minute books from this period document complaints that some members were spending too little time on the water and too much time of the Green playing football!

Swimming was also popular along the river banks on both the Green and Gorbals sides of the river. Shallow beaches and the deep pool at 'Dominies Hole' at the tip of Flesher's Haugh enticed bathers in the summer months, while across the river at the Hutchesontown Bend, the outflow from a cotton mill discharged a pleasant stream of hot water to keep swimmers toasty in the winter.

A swimming medal in Glasgow Museum's collection, dated to 1837, shows divers leaping from the boards here. Ordnance Survey maps from the 1850s show 4 springboards projecting out into the river, with stones steps leading down to them. The Corporation even installed stone benches so bathers could dry their clothes.

By the mid-1800s the practice of swimming in the river was in decline - increased river traffic, including the regular ferry from Rutherglen to Broomielaw, made this a busy and potentially hazardous spot. In addition, pollution levels were growing exponentially - the river was filthy by this point, not aided by the opening of the Dalmarnock Sewage Works upstream.

However, for the Victorians, it was concerns over public decency rather than safety brought about the end of swimming in the Clyde. Traditionally men swam naked, and in 1831 the Corporation issued an order banning naked swimming on certain stretches of the Clyde in town, and imposed a hefty £5 fine on anyone caught. Most had abandoned swimming in the river by the 1870s, and moved to cleaner outdoor spots such as the quarry at Alexandra Park. In 1878 the Corporation opened its first public baths at nearby Greenhead, providing safe, comfortable indoor swimming facilities.

Greenhead Baths are well-known, but the tale of Glasgows 'lost lido' is (literally) a buried history. Glasgow Corporation began plans to build an Olympic-sized outdoor pool in 1939. The site chosen was an area immediately north of Nelson's Monument, and excavations were underway when war broke out. Aerial photographs taken by the German Luftwaffe show the project's vast scale. Post-war, no funds were available to complete the project and the site was backfilled in 1950.

In the late 1990s, the City Council undertook a large-scale scheme to upgrade parts of the Green. Forty years on, the exact location of the pool had been lost, and there was a concern that it may have been filled in with potentially hazardous chemical waste from land around Shawfield Chemical Works. Archaeologists from Glasgow University were brought in to conduct geophysics across the Green in search of the lost pool. In addition to finding the swimming pool, the team also located a small village of WW2 air raid shelters. The site was decontaminated and capped in 2000.

Wild swimming is again gaining popularity, and although the Clyde has improved significantly in terms of water quality, we still have some way to go before we'll see swimming in the river again.