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In 2014 Glasgow will host the Commonwealth Games, welcoming thousands of athletes and visitors from around the world. Yet as this, the fourth in-depth urban study in the acclaimed Played in Britain series reveals, Glasgow has long been at the forefront of sporting development.
It is well documented - if not always acknowledged south of the border - that the modern form of Association football owes its origins to the `passing game' of Queen's Park FC in the 1870s, and that by the early 20th century Glasgow's three leading football clubs had the largest stadiums in the world. Nor is it a coincidence that the world's first specialist stadium designer was a Glaswegian engineer.
But beyond Hampden Park and the famed (and often infamous) rivalry of Celtic and Rangers, there exists across Glasgow a fascinating network of Junior clubs, community grounds and hidden heritage. The red, dusty `blaes' pitch - scourge of many a schoolboy's knees - is as much a part of that heritage as are the swards of Glasgow Green.
Over the last century Glasgow has had three racecourses and eight greyhound tracks. It has a surprising number of long established cricket clubs, and a range of fine Edwardian and Art Deco pavilions too.
It was in Glasgow in 1848 that the rules of modern bowling were set out - leading to a higher concentration of greens in the city than anywhere else in Britain. The most popular of these greens, laid out on the site of the 1901 Kelvingrove International Exhibition, will host the 2014 Commonwealth Games tournament. Also in Glasgow is the world's oldest manufacturer of bowls equipment, Thomas Taylor.
As might be expected in Scotland, the map of Glasgow is dotted and ringed by a web of nearly 40 public and private golf courses, many with their own topographic quirks and interesting clubhouses. Less evidence survives of nearly a hundred former curling ponds, although author Ged O'Brien has discovered the 1902 clubhouse of the Partick Club, hidden away in a Glasgow park.
O'Brien also reveals where Britain's first black footballer lived in the 1880s when he captained Queen's Park and was capped by Scotland, and the site of the private swimming club where the sport of water polo was invented in 1877. Two other Victorian private baths clubs survive and thrive - the Arlington and the Western - each with original features not to be found anywhere outside Scotland.
Less well known is a network of home-made `doocots', built by rival pigeon-fanciers on wastegrounds across the city as part of a time-honoured local tradition. O'Brien enters this secretive world to explain how it is done.
With its accessible blend of social, cultural, historical and architectural detail, backed up by stunning archive and modern photography and maps, Played in Glasgow offers a new angle on the city's rich heritage as it prepares the next generation of 21st Century sporting facilities for 2014.
21 x 21 cms, softback, 228 pages.
2010
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