CathkinParkLoyal

Just wanted to give a brief introduction because I’m about to make a bit of a wild claim and I don’t want anyone here believing I’m disingenuous. I’ve been a Queen’s fan proper for a couple of years now, I’ve always lived local and would drop in and out attending the odd game. Never really committed because I found the atmosphere at Hampden to be shite, just wasn’t enjoyable going week in week out, so when they turned professional with the understanding, they’d develop Lesser I got fully on board and it’s been my team since. I’m not much of a poster, I’ve been reading the comments on here for a while now to keep myself updated but I literally only made this account to bring up this topic. I know I’m going to sound like a mad conspiracy theorist but I truly believe the reason why the development of Lesser has stalled and we have had no update on how they plan to fix it going forward is because the long-term aim is to take over and move into Cathkin Park. I’ll try to be as informative as possible but truthfully, a lot of the investigative and legislative stuff goes over my head, so while I can pass on just random tid bits, I’d be unable to break it down properly. If anyone is looking for proper details though I’d recommend they get in touch with friends of Cathkin/Pollock Park who have a lot of opinions and proper details I don’t. That also being said I am trying to get a better understanding of the situation so have been trying to set up a conversation with someone who knows better than me and can talk me right through it. If anyone has questions, I’ll gladly pass it on, or even try and get someone better informed to post here. I live right on Cathkin Park, and for those unaware there is currently legal action being taken regarding it, with the court hearing set to take place on Thursday. Essentially a children’s football team the Jimmy Johnston football academy tried to purchase the park from the council but where denied. They then applied for a lease from the council for the park, which despite the local communities’ objections was granted. They have since also applied for permission to erect a fence around the pitch, which again despite being in contrast to locals wishes was granted. The contract JJA has with the council also includes that if the park is ever to be sold it can only be sold to them. They have already put up a temporary fence around the pitch which goes against their agreement. All of this is shite as locals like me use the park constantly, I play football with my little brother there every summer, and have met umpteen people visiting the park purely for it’s history. Cutting us off from the only free pitch in the area, so as a team from outside Glasgow can use it a couple of times a week is a joke. The reason why I suspect Queen’s might end up involved is because I was recently made aware that Willie Haughey has given £500,000 for the JJA to transform the current facilities that includes the pitch and changing rooms to a grade A level. He’s also attempting to purchase two football size pitches of land in Pollok park, how far along that is I’m unaware. I think the long-term aim is to normalise the pitch/park being public through the JJA with great facilities established. Move them on to Pollok Park eventually and we move in. There will be bits I’ve not covered properly, and I also might be close but not quite right so if yous have any questions please ask or chase it up for yourselves. I know there’s one twitter user far better informed on the topic than me who’s been speaking about it for a while https://x.com/gedboy58/status/1797862454954999930?t=8W6dFVJztH-XHFz5o8_Wlg&s=08.. I know it sounds like a lot of shite, but it just starts to add up I know he's a Celtic fan and we might just be too skint to fix lesser, but we also have a history there all be it brief, we take promo pictures there and we had that training session there which I never understood. If you’ve read all this I really appreciate it and would be curious to know if you’d support the move, or like me you’d rather we kept parks public and fixed the mess at lesser. If you want to support the case you can here https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-cathkin-park/.