Help to write the Glens’ history
Fan is putting together tribute for 125th birthday
Junior football may not have the glitz and the glamour of the senior game but it will always have its history.
And even if the crowds have sadly dwindled from the old terraces which used to hold thousands many years ago, there are still hundreds who continue to feel a strong connection with their local non-league side.
Ian Wright, a life-long Rutherglen Glencairn fan, was one of them.
He spent years on the club committee, including two years as president, and wrote the club’s official history back in 1996 to celebrate their centenary.
Ian’s name was also a regular by-line in the Rutherglen Reformer when his Glens’ match reports went to print.
And since his passing in 2013 at the age of 69, Peter Ferguson, 49, a third generation Glencairn supporter, is carrying on his legacy and is looking for Ruglonians help. In 2021 The Glens will celebrate their 125th anniversary and Peter aims to have collected enough information by then to collate a book or website to track The Glens’ history.
Anyone involved since 1996, past or present, is urged to step forward and give their story of following, playing, supporting or managing the 122-year-old club.
Explaining why he took up the task, Peter said: “It was after Ian Wright’s centenary book which traced the club’s history from 1896 right up to 1996.
“I’d always been a Glencairn supporter, all my life, but around about 1996 I got really serious about it and got quite dedicated to following the team and started taking my own stats.
“The website we do at the moment started as an unofficial website which I was just running for fun and I was doing my own match reports.
“Before Ian sadly passed away, the club came to me to ask if they could make my
website the official club website because of all the history that was in there that I was tracking.
“When Ian passed way, they asked me to take up the mantel and it’s really blossomed from there.
“I felt with the 125th anniversary coming up, somebody needed to keep Ian’s work going. He did it so well and had all those statistics, it was a shame for it all to stop at that point.
“And I had all the information there so I felt we could document something and put it into some sort of firm document, maybe a book or online website. I still haven’t decided quite what I am going to do with it exactly but I have three years to work that out.”
As the Reformer’s Glencairn correspondent he continues to cover every match this season – so his research for the Glencairn 125 project has begun. Peter has recently sat down with exmanagers John Conlin, Scott Smith, Willie Patterson and current first team boss Willie Harvey, while former players are offering their help by lending their memories of taking the field in the black and white. Peter, who stays in Croftfoot, said: “Anyone who has information they think might be useful will be welcomed. I would obviously give a credit to anyone who gives me the information, pictures or old articles from newspapers. “I’m looking to pick the brains of as many people as possible. “If you would like to contribute in any way, please get in touch.” To contact Peter, email peter. ferguson2@ntlworld.com or visit Glencairn’s Twitter and Facebook pages.