TIME TO ROAR
Send out a clear message to the SFA that Hampden must stay...before it is too late
THE NIGHT the Detroit Lions graced their shiny new stadium in October 1975, broadcaster Howard Cosell bestowed the Pontiac Silverdome with the status of a Roman temple.
Over the next two decades, the arena Cosell dubbed ‘the finest edifice of its type known to mankind’ would play host to Superbowl XVI, the 1994 World Cup, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen and Wrestlemania.
Yet by 2016, the Silverdome was something else. A desperate symbol of the wheels coming off the Motor City’s economy.
The Detroit Lions were long gone, the roof collapsed and the place fell into such a state of disrepair that the Transformers’ movie franchise used it as the set for a post-apocalyptic world.
Before demolition last year, the Silverdome was a storage compound for 9,000 recalled Volkswagens.
People think this won’t happen to Hampden. SFA threats to move to Murrayfield are still regarded as an elaborate bluff and that explains why Scotland’s national stadium is sleepwalking towards oblivion. Trudging silently towards the scrapyard without a mutter of protest.
A stadium which once held 149,415 for a Scotland v England match (in 1937) and hosted some of the finest football games of all time is in danger of becoming Third Lanark’s Cathkin Park, multiplied by 50. An embarrassing blot on Glasgow’s skyline and a reminder of Scottish football’s capacity to lacerate itself via self-inflicted wounds.
By the time anyone asks what the hell the SFA were thinking, the horse will be refuelling at Harthill Services.
On Tuesday, Hampden chiefs will step gingerly into the last-chance saloon to pitch their case for a reprieve from the SFA.
The old place harbours a bold, ambitious plan for regeneration and reinvention. But no one has the first idea of the details. Because no one is speaking up for Hampden.
Current owners Queen’s Park will say nothing for fear of breaching non-disclosure agreements so watertight they would silence Stormy Daniels. Stadium operators Hampden Park Limited are charged with making the final pitch, but can’t utter a peep publicly because they are an SFA subsidiary and Rod Petrie, the association’s vice president, has told them to zip it.
Contrast this with a Scottish Rugby Union PR campaign so slick, David Gandy should be the frontman.
Murrayfield is only ten years newer than the current Hampden. Right now, though, it looks like the hipster with a sculpted beard and a Starbucks discount card.
In contrast, the national stadium is the Alistair Darling of the set-up. Football’s version of Better Together.
It’s hard to make a positive case for the status quo when the other side propose a vision of utopia.
Murrayfield offers supporters a chance to experience something new and different. An opportunity for the SFA to sell more tickets for a bigger stadium with no overheads to worry about.
Familiarity prompts fans to treat Hampden with contempt. People think it has had its day.
Supporters behind the goals need binoculars. It lacks intimacy and atmosphere. Public transport links for major games are poor. And when the stadium is half-full, the PA announcements should be made by the Reverend I.M. Jolly.
But no stadium is perfect. And all the positive SRU PR in the world can’t obscure a basic fact.
Strip away the powerpoint presentations and Morningside charm of the rugger types and Murrayfield hosting football is nothing to write home about.
The main stand is set apart from the pitch by a running track. Public transport and access isn’t great there either. And hosting a Scottish Cup semi-final between Ross County and Livingston at a stadium with 67,000 seats would give the cretinous shock jocks of TalkSPORT a field day.
All of this before the actual implications of what a cup final between Rangers and Celtic could mean on Edinburgh’s streets fully dawn on Police Scotland.
Concerns over matchday experience and access will not concern the SFA board much. Their decision will be based on economics and saving money. Murrayfield offers a way to do it.
Yet the notion of throwing away Hampden’s history, tradition and status to save a couple of hundred grand a year for the SFA is nothing short of an outrage.
By 2021, Scotland could be the only footballing nation in the UK with no national stadium. The loss of Hampden would be a huge social and economic blow to Glasgow.
At a time when Scotland’s government want to seize and capitalise on the nation’s assets, they are on the verge of letting one of the biggest slip away.
Hampden is the natural home of Scottish football. It’s time to speak up for the old dear before it’s too late.