tamthebam

Madeleine Smith whose trial for murder was in 1857. Lived to a ripe old age in the end...

I thought it was taken c.1987 showing Jim McLean overseeing some youth players looking for a lost shilling on the terraces...

see, they tidy up after themselves. some cnut's dug shat right at the entrance of our house. I didn't clean it up (not my business, not my dug) but instead stepped over it. The paper boy wasn't so alert....

The late lamented dreaded deadly squeaky beast. A wee ned from Penicuik really. Dad's photo of one of the semi-feral Scottish Mining Museum cats.

Just as an aside, the current floodlights at Cliftonhill are seemingly the old lights from Cardiff RFC's ground.

Edinburgh City's first U-18 team played one of the last (if not the last) game at Bayview against East Fife in the Youth Cup - City won 1-0 which sort of revenged East Fife's 13-2 win there back in the 1930s.. I nicked a wooden "No Smoking" sign from the stand which I later posted to the editor of the East Fife fanzine "Away from the Numbers". I don't know if he ever got it though.

Not actually a photo as such, but an engraving of Hampden Park, on the Queens Park Shield. Photo taken by me last year at Stirling Uni v City. "The Queen’s Park Shield is the most prestigious prize in student football in Scotland. This competition was established in 1921 when Queen’s Park Football Club, realising the value of universities as potential recruiting grounds, presented a large silver shield to the Scottish Universities’ Football Association for an annual competition. The front of the shield is solid silver. It contains an engraving of Hampden Park as it was in 1921 and is surrounded by the crests of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews Universities, with a figurine of a player wearing a Queen’s Park strip standing above. " The Shield is a bloody impressive bit of silverware as well!

for interest I think the square at the bottom left of the picture is the George Heriot's cricket ground where Leith Athletic, at one of the many low ebbs in their history, played just after the First World War. IIRC the pitch became a car park later on.

Powderhall Stadium- used by Hibs, Hearts, Leith Athletic and Edinburgh City at various points in its history. The Powderhall site actually has a long history- the Bauchope Brothers originally laid out the site as an athletics stadium (one of the Bauchopes was the model for the "Golden Boy" on top of New College, University of Edinburgh" apparently although given the Edinburgh weather "Golden Eunuch" is probably more appropriate") in the late 1860s. There is an interesting book called "Powderhall and Pedestrianism" (1943) which details the history (it concentrates on athletics mainly) available in the National Library, Powderhall was sold to the Greyhound Racing Association in the 1920s and was used for greyhound racing and later speedway up until the mid 1990s. Powderhall was also a bit notorious for being flooded by the Water of Leith - in 1948 the stadium was flooded and some greyhounds were unfortunately drowned. When Craigroyston FC of the East of Scotland League moved to St Mark's Park on the other side of the Water of Leith banking was built up around their pitch and I suspect this was made using rubble from Powderhall which was being cleared for housing at the time.

Sir Alick of Milne told me that Woods Park was where Sir Harry Lauder Road is now and was used by Junior club Portobello Thistle. Anybody got any memorobilia of old grounds? I have a shower tap rescued from the ruins of Victoria Park, Newtongrange after the stand was demolished. It was probably touched by greats such as Willie Bauld and Dave McKay in its time. I also have a sink tap from Dunbar's Countess Park and a wee souvenir of the East Terrace at Easter Road.

that's the reformed Leith Athletic Football team- they started off as amateurs and had youth teams playing at Leith Links. The club were accepted into the East of Scotland League after a merger with the existing Edinburgh Athletic and played at Civil Service's ground at Muirhouse for a number of seasons before conning persuading Edinburgh Council to let them use the new astroturf pitch at Meadowbank and thus 1) going back to Leith Ath's old home and 2) becoming our lovely little neighbours, bless 'em.

There is a small display to St Bernard's in Clerk's Bar, Dundas Street. (fine ales can also be purchased). The gates to the bridge could still be seen (and probably still can- haven't been down that way for a while) a few years ago. the City Cup- as seen at Gretna 2008 this season..

I spotted this old "welcome to Dens Park" at the back of a dugout at Dundee Violet a few years ago Seats from the old Love Street being reused at Threave Rovers. Is that your old seat in the pile?! Love Street seats have also been recycled at Meadowbank Stadium. Structures from Hamilton Accie's Douglas Park were also re-erected at Glenafton and Auchinleck Talbot.

a Victorian print - the Gasworks site was where that hooer of a chimney is... after the New Street bus garage was demolished excavation work revealed parts of the old gas works and archaeologists did a dig there. Funny to think that tow Edinburgh football pitches made way for bus garages- Marine Gardens and Bathgate Park. Having left Bathgate Park the Edinburgh Junior FA made its home at Meadowbank on the site of the current pitch and grandstand. The tradition of crude amateur football on the site is continued to this day by the famous Edinburgh City FC...

sounds like the Millerhill marshalling yard. Ironically enough Hearts had a scheme to move to Millerhill in the 1990s. I miss old floodlight pylons- Hibs had a system called "Drenchlighting" and the style where the lights were angled towards the pitch seemed to have been, according to Simon Inglis' seminal book "The Football Grounds of Great Britain", a particularly Scottish feature. Two English grounds were notable for having Scottish style floodlights- Ashton Gate and the Goldstone Ground. I think having lights on top of stands is a bit crap tbh- at Starks they have done a sort of compromise, building a new stand and keeping sort of half pylons on it but it looks a bit weird. angled lights at Palmerston.

My first away trip was to Stirling Albion's Annfield ground for Stirling Albion v Meadowbank Thistle in May 1987. It was actually the last game on grass before the Binos put in a 1G(?!) plastic pitch. I tried to nick a bit of the pitch but a polis told me to keep it for the training. Feck knows why. I remember there was sleet the first half in the open terracing, we swapped ends with the Binos fans to the covered terracing and it came out sunshine! Thistle lost 3-1 but we promoted that day thanks to other results going their way. I revisited the ground for Thistle's first ever reserve match a few years later and then for an utterly ridiculous New Year's Day game c.1990. It was howling a gale and the ball blew all over the pitch. Stirling got a penalty which had to be retaken twice- Thistle goalie Jim McQueen saving all 3 attempts. The game finished 0-0 not surprisingly. Forthbank is dull by comparison...

I wondered what happened to Greek chart bothering Scottish popstrelle Tippi but it seems she's been having it away with Pat Kane's brother.. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/music/music-news/hue-and-cry-stars-baby-joy-1552049

from today's York City v Morecambe programme "We are delighted to welcome today Heaven-Leigh Bilbrough, age 9, who is the winner of our Christmas cover competition..." Heaven-Leigh??! Not being entirely up to date with League Two I was wondering who the grey haired shouty old man was in the home dugout. Turned out it was Nigel Worthington...

I'm off to York City v Morecambe with 100% of the Edinburgh Morecambe Supporters Travel Club (all one of them!)

massive hole found near old mineworkings in west lothian too..

I must have seen them supporting the magnificent Ginger. But whatever happened to the Sluts of Trust? Oh yes, they're now the Board at Ibrox, arf arf.

Gun eh? so apart from the comeback tours they've done in the last few years (saw them in Glasgow last year) and the sponsorship of Forth Wanderers JFC, naw, they're not up to much recently....

well, I got this free record as part of some Tennant's band promotion back in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Years since I played the thing so I've no idea if they were good/shite. wanky name though.

funnily enough "Hamlet" was what came to my mind. Hamlet takes the entire play to get round to doing in his uncle after farting about whereas with Kim Young One there's nae messing. Apparently the uncle was too close to Beijing so it was "cheerio china" after that

i'm more of a cat person (one of our cats thought it was a dug mind you) but here's a couple of bulldogs snapped at Golspie Sutherland