Roar no more? Imagining life after Hampden
As future of the national stadium hangs in the balance
FOR more than a century its unforgettable roar summed up the spirit and passion of Glasgow.
Hampden was where we sang for the Old Firm, against the Auld Enemy or along with old crooners such as Rod Stewart. Scots always liked to make a noise at the national stadium.
But what would happen to the arena if its stands ever fell silent? We might be about to find out.
Later this month its current tenants, the Scottish Football Association, will make a decision on whether to flit to Edinburgh’s Murrayfield.
Senior officials at Glasgow City Council are already worried about what the SFA might leave behind: an old shell of a stadium nobody will quite know what to do with.
Glasgow has been here before. The national stadium’s owners. Queens Park, used to play at another field called Hampden before they moved to the current site.
That field, renamed Cathkin Park, became the home of Third Lanark before the once great club folded in 1967. Its ground, a stone’s throw from the national stadium, has been semi-derelict ever since.
An official source expects something much worse “Closing the doors of Hampden would be a disaster for the city, socially, culturally and, crucially, economically,” he told The Evening Times. “This would not be another Third Lanark – we’re talking about the equivalent of 50 Cathkin Parks closing. “The impact of lost revenue on the local economy would be huge.”
The world is now littered with crumbling, rusting, vandalised stadiums, symbols of vanity projects like the 2000 Athens Olympics or failed sporting franchises.
Take Detroit. This US city, home of Motown music and a once proud automotive industry, for years has been the picture postcard of poorly managed post-industrial decline. But nothing symbolised Detroit’s descent quite as much as the demise of the Pontiac Silverdome, named after one of the city’s great motor marques.
The stadium was once the biggest in America’s football league. Abandoned by its main tenants, the Detroit Lions, in 2001 it fell in to disrepair and became a magnet for vandals and gangsters. It took more than a decade and a half of controversies and half-hearted efforts at revitalisation before the plug was pulled on the Silverdome. And even when the city finally ordered the structure down, the demolition was botched. Only this spring did the last wall come down. The site is now a 50ft deep hole
This is the nightmare scenario in the City Chambers. Imagine Hampden without Scotland, soldiering on, dilapidating with each year, events growing less and less frequent, and anti-social problems becoming more and more common.
The council source said: “When the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit closed, unemployment and crime in the local area rose to record levels and they are still living with the legacy of that.
“Proximity to a major stadium raises local house prices by up to 15 per cent and we shouldn’t underestimate the impact the closure of Hampden would have.
“The south side of Glasgow is one of the most vibrant parts of the city, both for residents and visitors. What it brings to the city’s offer continues to increase year on year.
“The presence of an abandoned, decaying, dilapidated stadium would cause huge problems for the entire city.”
Businesses in the shadow of the ground do not need to be convinced.
Artur Santos runs a deli, called Arturo’s, in Mount Florida. Like many local residents, the Portuguese businessman (Arturo is his Italian-sounding nickname) has his gripes about the football and concert crowds, especially those for cup finals and semis. But he said: “Without the stadium things would be more worse than now.” Mr