Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Coatbridge mark 30 years since double
The Coatbridge Civic Centre Amateur football club marked 30 years since winning the Scottish Amateur Cup and the West of Scotland Cup in the same season.
They were the first amateur outfit to achieve this outside of Queen’s Park in the history of the competition
Coatbridge CC, who formed in 1976, were losing finalists in the 1983 Scottish Cup Final before finally lifting the trophy in 1986.
That was the signalled the start of bigger things to come as they completed the double on May 29 1988 at Hampden Park.
The team was managed through this period by Willie Cox and trained by exRangers, Celtic and Tottenham player Alfie Conn.
James McCann, who was club president through the period of success, told the Advertiser: “It was a brilliant achievement for the side at that time.
“Queen’s Park had done it, but they were a well-established amateur team.
“We had some great players back then - the standard of amateur players in those days is totally different to what it is now.
“We were so dominant in that five-year period, but then we stated to lose players and in the nineties we were competing with school teams.”
After the impressive decades the club faced a decline in the 1990’s before eventually folding in 2005.
The 65- year- old founding member McCann added that they hoped to get the side back together again later this year.
“We had a reunion for the first win in 1986, so it would be good to get everyone together again.
“I still see some of the guys regularly to go down the pub or something. They could still talk football all day.”