Cmon the Hill Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 I've seen the name 'F.D. Properties' around and assume that's who the sponsor was in the Ronnie Lowrie Golden Age. No idea who's funds/runs/owns it nowadays. My big worry was that it would be sold for housing, and we'd end up playing on a school pitch but I think there's a problem with access. As someone said, it could be a really great venue with a bit of money spent on it - technically a four sided stadium. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glensmad Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 Freddie Duda was a local Maryhill businessman who invested a lot of money into the club and its facilities around 20 years ago or so. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lokloyal Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 1 hour ago, glensmad said: Freddie Duda was a local Maryhill businessman who invested a lot of money into the club and its facilities around 20 years ago or so. Yep that’s the guy.Didnt his son take over ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbaxters Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 16 minutes ago, Lokloyal said: Yep that’s the guy.Didnt his son take over ? Hopefully yes but his da kept his name there and they called the company "Camptown Races". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillonearth Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 19 hours ago, KirkyRobRoy said: It was indeed His constant trolling got called out and he flipped Anyway, to get back to the topic, Maryhill, and Darvel are the ones that come to mind when i think of grounds prone to going off with rain/poor weather, so considering artifical might be an idea (in particular, i think Maryhill would be a lovely ground with a nice artificial pitch with their wee stand and brilliant terracing viewing angle) I think once a ground gets a name for waterlogging, it tends to stick. The geography of Lochburn - a former Victorian quarry sitting directly underneath a canal - means it's always going to be on the heavy side, and the sunken nature of the pitch which is obviously one of the plus points for spectators is also one of the drawbacks in that respect. We had the park thoroughly vertidrained maybe two years back and it's been far better since then in terms of postponements - before that, if it rained overnight on the Friday there was a decent chance the next day's game would be off, but in the last couple of years we've really only had games off when pretty much everything else on grass is off as well due to rain or frost. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillonearth Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 5 hours ago, Bestsinceslicebread said: There was a lad who had put money in for the past 20 years and was informed that when he retired, Maryhill Fc just scraped by for a few years but within the last 10 or so either side, a local lad then started putting money in. Don't know who both people are. The two are probably Freddie Duda Jr who ran the social club - unfortunately he died rather than retired - as for the second one you're maybe thinking of Mark Dallas from Insane Championship Wrestling who was a great help in terms of raising funds etc a few years back. Funnily enough he was up at the game on Saturday! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bestsinceslicebread Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 1 minute ago, Hillonearth said: The two are probably Freddie Duda Jr who ran the social club - unfortunately he died rather than retired - as for the second one you're maybe thinking of Mark Dallas from Insane Championship Wrestling who was a great help in terms of raising funds etc a few years back. Funnily enough he was up at the game on Saturday! Actually your right, the guy I was thinking about died and then I'm sure Maryhill had to duck and dive to get by but the guy who took over was a local lad who loved Maryhill and tried his best which going by all accounts was superb 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillonearth Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 8 minutes ago, Bestsinceslicebread said: Actually your right, the guy I was thinking about died and then I'm sure Maryhill had to duck and dive to get by but the guy who took over was a local lad who loved Maryhill and tried his best which going by all accounts was superb I suppose we were actually one of the first clubs to benefit from sugar daddies in the shape of Freddie's dad and Ronnie McDonald - although from what I understand it was nowhere near the scale of the current arms race we're seeing in terms of player wages etc and was more targeted towards club infrastructure It put us in a bit a false position for a number of years however, and our biggest problem since was a strange reluctance to bring new blood on board. The "glory days" committee gradually atrophied due to age, illness and death - when I got invited on I was the first new body to join in something like four or five years(!) - and it got to the point where it was essentially unsustainable which led to the SOS going out and thankfully a lot of committed new people with new ideas joining us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PossilYM Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 54 minutes ago, Hillonearth said: I suppose we were actually one of the first clubs to benefit from sugar daddies in the shape of Freddie's dad and Ronnie McDonald - although from what I understand it was nowhere near the scale of the current arms race we're seeing in terms of player wages etc and was more targeted towards club infrastructure It put us in a bit a false position for a number of years however, and our biggest problem since was a strange reluctance to bring new blood on board. The "glory days" committee gradually atrophied due to age, illness and death - when I got invited on I was the first new body to join in something like four or five years(!) - and it got to the point where it was essentially unsustainable which led to the SOS going out and thankfully a lot of committed new people with new ideas joining us. Bit unlucky the Maryhill men were investing in what was then, a fitba cul-de-sac ie the Juniors. The then crumbs from the big boys table 115 years too late, aye if you win the regional league or the Junior Cup, we'll let you in the Big Scottish. Better hope Talbot didn't do the double that year. Nobody will say it publicly but it all so too late for a host of clubs out there and damn too late for us free bus pass holders. Genuinely would have loved to have seen Cambuslang Rangers of 50 years ago in a pyramid set up. Got to think seats and floodlights would have arrived sharpish. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillonearth Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 11 minutes ago, PossilYM said: Bit unlucky the Maryhill men were investing in what was then, a fitba cul-de-sac ie the Juniors. The then crumbs from the big boys table 115 years too late, aye if you win the regional league or the Junior Cup, we'll let you in the Big Scottish. Better hope Talbot didn't do the double that year. Nobody will say it publicly but it all so too late for a host of clubs out there and damn too late for us free bus pass holders. Genuinely would have loved to have seen Cambuslang Rangers of 50 years ago in a pyramid set up. Got to think seats and floodlights would have arrived sharpish. Absolutely - I guess it's a good thing in retrospect that the glass ceiling was so firmly in place back then as there probably would have been the temptation to do what a lot of teams seem to be doing these days and to use an atom bomb to crack a nut and end up paying championship-style wages for the sixth tier. It was telling however that Clyde won the second division one year with what was basically the previous season's Maryhill team, so without the logjam of the LL directly above the gap probably wasn't as wide back then as it is now. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thejackdaw Posted August 27 Share Posted August 27 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Hillonearth said: Absolutely - I guess it's a good thing in retrospect that the glass ceiling was so firmly in place back then as there probably would have been the temptation to do what a lot of teams seem to be doing these days and to use an atom bomb to crack a nut and end up paying championship-style wages for the sixth tier. It was telling however that Clyde won the second division one year with what was basically the previous season's Maryhill team, so without the logjam of the LL directly above the gap probably wasn't as wide back then as it is now. I remember it very well and Cullen packaging were hugely instrumental in the maryhill quality of squad of the mid to latter 90s . Ronnie McDonald and Allan Maitland were the driving forces behind the scenes/management. Brain Smith, pat Keogh,Ritchie mckusker , allan grant, Neil watt to only name a few by the way and most if not all went to clyde. I don't think that they were on a small pittance at maryhill as they were seriously real deal. Ronnie and Maitland went to clyde soon after and continued the junior trend in signing guys Like Steve convery. Edited August 27 by Thejackdaw 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillonearth Posted August 28 Share Posted August 28 12 hours ago, Thejackdaw said: I remember it very well and Cullen packaging were hugely instrumental in the maryhill quality of squad of the mid to latter 90s . Ronnie McDonald and Allan Maitland were the driving forces behind the scenes/management. Brain Smith, pat Keogh,Ritchie mckusker , allan grant, Neil watt to only name a few by the way and most if not all went to clyde. I don't think that they were on a small pittance at maryhill as they were seriously real deal. Ronnie and Maitland went to clyde soon after and continued the junior trend in signing guys Like Steve convery. Oh yeah, I'd never suggest for a minute we weren't paying slightly over the odds by the standards of the time and the players were there purely for the love of the club and because they'd bought into what we were trying to do - it's always a bit cringey when you get players claiming that's the case when the only thing that attracted them was the moolah, and even cringier when fans seem to actually believe them. Relatively speaking though from what I've been told the player budget still wasn't huge in contrast to nowadays - adjusted for inflation even the handful of top earners were probably pulling down what would seem to be bog standard money in the premier - and probably in the first! - these days. The paradigm's completely changed. It's a bit like when you look back at old concert tickets where you saw top-tier bands for a few quid - say a tenner or fifteen quid adjusted for inflation - and now the same band's charging a couple of hundred notes for the Hydro 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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