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Parkhead F.C.

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Parkhead F.C.

Parkhead Football Club was a founding member of the Scottish Junior Football League but the team no longer exists. It played at Helenslea Park in Parkhead, Glasgow. In the early years of the Scottish Junior Cup, Parkhead Juniors appeared in nine finals and won the cup five times. Many of its players went on to fame in other clubs. Peter Dickson went to Albion Rovers and Andy Auld played five times for the US national team.

Across London Road from Westthorn Park there was a football ground with an ash pitch, earthen terracing, and a perimeter fence of black-painted corrugated iron. This was the home ground of Parkhead Juniors Football Club. Founded in 1880 (seven years before Glasgow Celtic, who were the first British team to win the European Cup, and whose Celtic Park Stadium is a couple of bus stops further along London Road) it was the oldest team in the Scottish Junior League. They were one of the eight founder members in 1895 of what was to become the Scottish Junior Football League.

They won the Scottish Junior Cup five times (1899, 1903, 1915, 1920 and 1924), and appeared as finalists in 8 out of the 12 seasons from 1911. "If no single club could claim total dominance over the period (ie the first half of the 20th century) Parkhead at least merit an honourable mention with three league titles (one shared); four Glasgow Cups; two Junior cups and three other appearances in the final". On 10 April 1924, at the semi-final of the 1923–24 season they met Bridgeton Waverley at Celtic Park where they faced a crowd of 11,500, even though the SFA cup final was taking place at Hampden Park at the same time.

The entrance was in Methven Street, but there were turnstiles on Cuthelton Street, just down a little from the "Wee Farm" shop (which was still extant in 2009) and across from Parkhead Fire Station (opened in December 1952). They were still playing in the 1950s, but Parkhead Juniors went defunct in June 1963. In the later 1960s/early 1970s about a third of the ground at the Cuthelton Street/top-end-of Methven St junction was taken up by housing development (Lilybank), the rest of the ground down to London Road being turned into a landscaped area open to the public.

Scottish Junior Cup

  • Winners: 1898–99, 1902–03, 1914–15, 1919–20, 1923–24
  • References

    Parkhead F.C. Wikipedia