Memories of Hampden Park

This dust in my throat has brought back memories of Scotland games at Hampden Park. We'd always make our way to "J Section"....more commonly known as "the Rangers end". It was covered, the "Celtic end" was uncovered. Even if our tickets were for the Celtic end we'd always make our way round to J Section by jumping the fences. Having looked at the size and type of fences back then I'd never be able to do it sober. They were quite tall with nasty spikes on top. But if you're drunk you don't really care about that. Long before all-seated stadium became a requirement in the UK the Rangers end was a covered terracing. And before it was concreted it was just dust on the ground. So if Scotland scored you'd have thousands of feet churning up this dust and you'd have to insert your scarf into your mouth to breathe through (or tie the scarf round your face). Going back on the train you'd blow your nose and all that would come out was this black mess. I miss those days. As disgusting as it sounds you couldnae beat it. A goal would be scored and you'd end up about 20 yards away from where you started minus a shoe. Even funnier was before the drinks ban in 1980 seeing them clear up all the bottles and cans from the terracing.

One of my funniest memories at Hampden was when Scotland played England. The England fans decided to fight the Scotland fans. Somehow my cousin had managed to find himself in the England section (at the Celtic end) for this match. During this riot he was photographed in the Saturday evening football paper (sadly no longer published) - there are hundreds of England fans going berserk and in the middle of it all is my cousin on his own who had fallen asleep while standing up leaning against a barrier. He was quite proud of that picture and put it up on his bedroom wall. His mother didn't share his pride.