Ash pitches in Scotland

[GNU_Linux]

This is a 2 part question. I'm looking for both a list of clubs that have used ash pitches and also information on when ash was phased out by leagues. I'll add any clubs that have used ash in a list below:

 

Dennistoun Waverley (Glasgow Junior League)

 

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[drs]

I believe Perthshire were the last team in the current West juniors to have an ash pitch, seem to recall it going grass sometime in the 1980s.

[cmontheloknow]

Pollok had a hybrid of grass and ash I think up to the 60s?

[Sergeant Wilson]

Did the "old school" complain about it?

[Blackie Gold]

Talbot had an ash pitch for a season 1945/46. It was a disaster with Talbot sharing with Cumnock the following season as they reverted back to grass. I read also that Talbot played at Edinburgh Emmet who had an ash pitch.

[Tutankhamen]

Do local councils still try to pass them off as all weather pitches?

[bluedragon]

Edinburgh Emmet played at Bathgate Park that was a cinder pitch. The ground was just off the Canongate part of the Royal Mile. In the late 19^th Century the site was a gas works that closed in around 1900 and lay derelict for a short time before the buildings were demolished in 1918.  As an open space simply known as the Old Gas Works it was utilised for all sorts of events. It appears to have become a football ground when Edinburgh Emmet were given a tenancy for the site by Edinburgh Corporation at a rent of £10 pa to allow the club to establish a football ground on the site when they joined the Junior ranks in 1918. It took its name from Baillie Bathgate who was a senior councillor on the Edinburgh Corporation who represented the Canongate Ward and did a lot to help develop recreational activities for residents. 

The ground was little more than a cinder pitch with a perimeter fence. It was soon heavily used for other matches, e.g. juvenile, local cup finals, etc. Edinburgh Emmet enjoyed some success and this was no doubt in part due to their central location and being able to attract attendances of around 2,000. Attendances at the ground were some times as high as 7,000. However, there was continual pressure to utilise the empty central location and Bathgate Park was short-lived. The Edinburgh Corporation sold a 3.49 acre site that included Bathgate Park to the Scottish Motor Traction Company for £17,500. The last report of football being played there is in August 1926. The Corporation found Emmet another temporary ground on land they were building on in the south of the city. Emmet officials, while pleased they had a ground, were concerned with being decanted so far from the centre of the city. The temporary ground was very soon taken up for housing and the club moved to Meadowbank. The club ceased to exist in 1930.

The match "Blackie Gold" recalls might be when Auchinleck Talbot played Edinburgh Emmet at Bathgate Park on 5 January 1924 in the 5^th Round of the Junior Cup and won 2:1.

Appropriately Ashfield's Saracen Park was an ash pitch at one time.

I had always thought the ash pitch was a Scottish phenomenon however when Dalkeith Thistle toured Norway in 1954 they played Voss Sports on an ash pitch.

[perthmo]

Ash pitches (called Hartplatz) were common in Germany until quite recently.  Many have now been replaced with artificial grass surfaces.

 

In Scotland, ash pitches were widespread in the Juniors in Fife until the 1960s.

[Ludo*1]

Ash pitches are the fucking devil.

[Cyclizine]

On 16/06/2018 at 00:34, Ludo*1 said:

Ash pitches are the fucking devil.

I'm sure I still have shards of blaes embedded in my knees from nearly thirty years ago.

[Clayhole Blue]

Edinburgh Emmet played at Bathgate Park that was a cinder pitch. The ground was just off the Canongate part of the Royal Mile. In the late 19^th Century the site was a gas works that closed in around 1900 and lay derelict for a short time before the buildings were demolished in 1918.  As an open space simply known as the Old Gas Works it was utilised for all sorts of events. It appears to have become a football ground when Edinburgh Emmet were given a tenancy for the site by Edinburgh Corporation at a rent of £10 pa to allow the club to establish a football ground on the site when they joined the Junior ranks in 1918. It took its name from Baillie Bathgate who was a senior councillor on the Edinburgh Corporation who represented the Canongate Ward and did a lot to help develop recreational activities for residents. 

The ground was little more than a cinder pitch with a perimeter fence. It was soon heavily used for other matches, e.g. juvenile, local cup finals, etc. Edinburgh Emmet enjoyed some success and this was no doubt in part due to their central location and being able to attract attendances of around 2,000. Attendances at the ground were some times as high as 7,000. However, there was continual pressure to utilise the empty central location and Bathgate Park was short-lived. The Edinburgh Corporation sold a 3.49 acre site that included Bathgate Park to the Scottish Motor Traction Company for £17,500. The last report of football being played there is in August 1926. The Corporation found Emmet another temporary ground on land they were building on in the south of the city. Emmet officials, while pleased they had a ground, were concerned with being decanted so far from the centre of the city. The temporary ground was very soon taken up for housing and the club moved to Meadowbank. The club ceased to exist in 1930.

The match "Blackie Gold" recalls might be when Auchinleck Talbot played Edinburgh Emmet at Bathgate Park on 5 January 1924 in the 5^th Round of the Junior Cup and won 2:1.

Appropriately Ashfield's Saracen Park was an ash pitch at one time.

I had always thought the ash pitch was a Scottish phenomenon however when Dalkeith Thistle toured Norway in 1954 they played Voss Sports on an ash pitch.

Assuming from your mention of the Park and surrounding area being sold to Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) it became the New Street bus depot, which itself has only recently been demolished. Gives an idea of where it was.

[KHVRN]

Dunno what clubs used to use them, but almost every village ive been in in the Lothians and Lanarkshire has at least 2 lol

[sjc]

Japanese schools pretty much all use "ash" pitches for football as well as other sports. Obviously a well drained, flat and true grass pitch is a better surface but as long as it (the ash pitch) is similarly flat, true and has adequate drainage then there's no reason for their use to hinder technical development of players.

[bluedragon]

On 19/07/2018 at 16:27, Clayhole Blue said:

 

Assuming from your mention of the Park and surrounding area being sold to Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) it became the New Street bus depot, which itself has only recently been demolished. Gives an idea of where it was.

 

Yes that's correct.  When the New Street bus depot was demolished a few years ago and before the building of the Canongate development started a walk up to Regent Road gave a great view down into the cleared site that probably  looked very much as it did when it was Bathgate Park. 

[HibeeJibee]

On ‎22‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 10:51, bluedragon said:

Yes that's correct.  When the New Street bus depot was demolished a few years ago and before the building of the Canongate development started a walk up to Regent Road gave a great view down into the cleared site that probably  looked very much as it did when it was Bathgate Park. 

... use of which by non-paying supporters saw it nicknamed, as at some other grounds, "the Jew's Gallery" .