Scotland national football team home stadium

Hampden Park in Glasgow is the primary home stadium for the Scotland national football team. This has been the case since 1906, soon after it opened. The present site of Hampden Park is the third location to bear that name and both the previous locations also hosted Scotland games. Scotland have also played many of their home games in other stadiums throughout their history, both in friendly matches and for competitive tournaments.

History

Early history

Scotland hosted the first official international match, a goalless draw against England on 30 November 1872, at the Hamilton Crescent cricket ground in Glasgow.[1] This venue was used for four Scotland matches between then and 1876. The next venue to be used was the first Hampden Park, home of Queen's Park. It hosted the first ever Scottish Cup Final in 1874 and a Scotland v England match in 1878.[2] Queen's Park left this site in 1883 because of a proposal to extend the Cathcart District Railway line through the site.[2]

Queen's Park then moved to a second Hampden Park, which hosted internationals between 1885 and 1890.[3] The first match hosted outside Glasgow was at Hibernian Park in Edinburgh on 10 March 1888. This started a trend of smaller venues outside Glasgow being used for some of the less attractive fixtures, particularly against Wales. The more attractive match against rivals England was always played in Glasgow, which had the largest stadiums. During the 1890s and early 1900s most of the Scotland fixtures were played either at Celtic Park or Ibrox Park, as Rangers and Celtic competed to host the lucrative match against England.[4] The present site of Ibrox Park was opened in 1899 and it hosted a Scotland match for the first time in 1902, but a collapse in the wooden terracing resulted in the first Ibrox disaster, during which 25 fatalities and nearly 600 injuries were suffered.[4][5]

The loss of Scotland games to the other venues in Glasgow forced Queen's Park to consider increasing the capacity of the second Hampden.[3] In the late 1890s, Queen's Park requested more land for development, but this was refused by the landlords. The club acquired a new site, the present site of Hampden Park, from Henry Erskine Gordon in 1899. The third Hampden opened in October 1903, while the second Hampden was taken over by Third Lanark and renamed Cathkin Park.[2] The third Hampden hosted its first international in 1906. It expanded to the point where it set world record attendances between the 1900s and 1930s.[3] Even as late as 1970, Hampden set a record attendance for a UEFA competition match, the 1969–70 European Cup semi-final second leg between Celtic and Leeds United.[3]

Modern redevelopments

Hampden continued to be the main home stadium for the Scotland national team until the early 1990s. It then required significant redevelopment to become an all-seater stadium, meeting the requirements of the Taylor Report. Ibrox Park and Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen had both been largely redeveloped before then and hosted some of the 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification matches.

Hampden re-opened in 1994 and was used for the UEFA Euro 1996 qualifying matches. It then had to be closed again as the main (south) stand was replaced and a variety of venues were used for 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification and UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying matches, including Ibrox, Pittodrie, Celtic Park, Rugby Park in Kilmarnock and Tynecastle Stadium in Edinburgh.[6] The fully redeveloped Hampden was re-opened in 1999 and hosted the later Euro 2000 qualifiers, including the first leg of the play-off against England.[6] Hampden has hosted the clear majority of Scotland matches since 1999 and almost all competitive games. Some friendlies have been moved to smaller venues outside Glasgow, usually either Pittodrie or Easter Road in Edinburgh. Hampden was temporarily closed from November 2013 due to its use as an athletics stadium in the 2014 Commonwealth Games.[7][8]

List of home stadiums

Number of
matches		 Stadium First international Last international
240 Hampden Park, Glasgow[note 1] 7 April 1906 8 October 2016
25 Celtic Park, Glasgow[note 2] 25 March 1893 18 November 2014
18 Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow[note 3] 15 March 1909 11 October 2014
14 Pittodrie Stadium, Aberdeen 3 February 1900 6 February 2013
9 Tynecastle Stadium, Edinburgh 26 March 1892 9 May 2003
6 First Hampden Park, Glasgow[note 1] 2 March 1878 25 March 1882
6 Second Hampden Park, Glasgow[note 1] 14 March 1885 5 April 1890
6 Easter Road, Edinburgh[note 4] 22 April 1998 5 June 2015
4 Hamilton Crescent, Glasgow 30 November 1872 25 March 1876
4 Rugby Park, Kilmarnock 24 March 1894 27 May 1997
3 Dens Park, Dundee 12 March 1904 2 December 1936
3 First Ibrox Park, Glasgow[note 3] 9 March 1889 27 March 1897
2 First Cathkin Park, Glasgow 15 March 1884 29 March 1884
1 Cappielow, Greenock 15 March 1902 15 March 1902
1 Carolina Port, Dundee 21 March 1896 21 March 1896
1 Fir Park, Motherwell 19 March 1898 19 March 1898
1 Firhill Stadium, Glasgow 25 February 1928 25 February 1928
1 First Celtic Park, Glasgow[note 2] 28 March 1891 28 March 1891
1 Hibernian Park, Edinburgh[note 4] 10 March 1888 10 March 1888
1 Love Street, Paisley 17 March 1923 17 March 1923
1 Underwood Park, Paisley 22 March 1890 22 March 1890
348 Home matches played 30 November 1872 8 October 2016

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 There have been three sites called 'Hampden Park'. The first is now the site of the Hampden Bowling Club. The second Hampden Park was renamed New Cathkin Park when Queen's Park FC moved to the current site of Hampden Park and Third Lanark AC moved in, bringing the 'Cathkin Park' name from their old home.
  2. 1 2 There have been two sites called 'Celtic Park'. Celtic FC first established a Celtic Park in 1888, but moved to a different site in 1892 when their rent was increased.
  3. 1 2 There have been two sites called 'Ibrox Park'. Rangers FC first established an Ibrox Park in 1889, but moved to a different site (adjacent to the previous) in 1899. The total for the current Ibrox Park does not include the match abandoned in 1902 due to the first Ibrox disaster, as it was later declared void and replayed at Villa Park.
  4. 1 2 The match played against Wales on 10 March 1888 at the Hibernian FC ground was played at Hibernian Park. This is not the present site of Easter Road stadium, which opened in 1892.

References

  1. ↑ Forsyth, Roddy (30 November 2012). "Roddy Forsyth: the first ever football international was indeed the start of something big". Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 "The Hampden Story". www.hampdenroar.org.uk. Scottish Football Museum. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Hampden". www.scottishfa.co.uk. Scottish Football Association. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  4. 1 2 Grahame, Ewing (30 December 2010). "More than 600 people were killed or injured in the first Ibrox Disaster in 1902 when Scotland played England". Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  5. ↑ Gillon, Doug (7 April 2008). "A national tragedy: Ibrox disaster, 1902". The Herald. Herald & Times Group. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  6. 1 2 Brown, Alan; Tossani, Gabriele (25 June 2015). "Scotland - International Matches 1996-2001". www.rsssf.com. RSSSF. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  7. ↑ Barnes, John (4 October 2012). "Hampden will be closed to football for Glasgow 2014 preparations". BBC Sport. BBC. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  8. ↑ "Scotland v USA: November Hampden friendly confirmed". BBC Sport. BBC. 13 September 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.

External links

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