What links a former landmark building not far from Maryhill and another landmark building in Paignton?
My thought is of the link between the one-time Singer sewing machine factory near Clydebank and Oldway. Alas we didn't have time for the Devil's Porridge exhibition (can anyone suggest what that may have been about?)
Well I always understood the "Devil's Porridge" was the mixture that munitions factories used to make cordite........the vital ingrededient in making a "good bang"!
Yes indeed, the Singer family made their early money in Glasgow and spent it in sunny Devon. Over nineteen thousand Sweaties worked away in their three factories in the Maryhill, Kilbowie area of the city and one of them was in fact the largest industrial unit in the world in it's time with over a million square foot of floor space. Indeed there so many who worked for Singers there was even a dedicated railway station for the factories with no less than 6 platforms. It's name? why Singer of course and it still exists today!
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Re: Football Grounds Picture Quiz (5) « Reply #62 on Aug 7, 2010, 12:26am »
You bugger you, just as I was going to bed.
However, I'll start the ball rolling here:
1~ Rossett Park, Crosby. Marine FC 2~ Holly Park, Garston. Long since closed (1989) home of South Liverpool FC 10~ Tower Ground, New Brighton. Scene of our embarassing defeat to non league but former League club New Brighton in the FA Cup back in the fifties............another long closed venue and last in use as a stock car circuit if you please!
So I guess you've been visiting the Diddy Men and geting your new suit made in Knotty Ash Barty, I'll have a bash at the others in the morning.
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Re: Football Grounds Picture Quiz (5) « Reply #63 on Aug 7, 2010, 7:38am »
No.5 is also Holly Park....
Holly Park, now home to the Liverpool South Parkway railway station that was built as the link for the John Lennon airport.
I took these pictures some three months ago and was actually standing in the concourse when I bid over the phone, and won, my most prized United programme, the one from our first season in 1927!
This is the same view as no.2 of where the grandstand was... Note the famous back wall still there and the houses behind.
A similair view to no.5, the car parked near enough where the enclosure stand started. The picture was taken from about where the bottom goalmouth was situated. Note the railway gantries behind.
A view from behind the top goal showing the new railway terminal. The 'Beatles' are actually situated right in the goalmouth! (the pitch carrying on behind them and through the terminal building)
9) Could be an old view of Horwich RMI's grandstand at Grundy Hill before moving to Leigh and changing their name.
Or Rossett Park (Marine) once more before the old stand was pulled down to make way for the new one, 'cos I don't recall Grundy Hill having a seated stand behind the goal. The pitch used to slope spectacularly both end to end and sideways, with the foot of the corner pin in the highest corner being level with the crossbar on the same goal line; and the corner to corner drop was measured at 16 feet ~ double the height of a set of goal posts!
Grundy Hill (complete with those ancient old floodlights) was still there when I worked in the area for the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 but it's gone to housing now. Very near to the Reebok Arena which was a badminton venue and sitting below Rivington Pike where the cycling road race and mountain biking was held.
An early morning vision of the Reebok Stadium "floating" on the dawn ground mist like a huge white space craft is still with me.....................it looked simply stunning.
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Re: Football Grounds Picture Quiz (5) « Reply #68 on Aug 7, 2010, 9:25pm »
I’m terribly sorry for setting such a feeble challenge. Here are the answers according to Played in Liverpool (an English Heritage publication) from which the pictures are taken:
1 Marine 2 South Liverpool 3 Formby 4 Kirkby Town 5 South Liverpool 6 Marine 7 Bootle 8 Cammell Laird 9 Marine 10 New Brighton
The book says the pictured Kirkby Town ground is actually Simonswood Lane, a council-owned ground where there was once talk of developing a 10,000 capacity. It was a later Kirkby club – which became Knowsley United in the late 1980s – that played at Alt Park. Simonswood Lane is now the site of Liverpool’s academy.
I’ve actually sat in that new stand behind the goal at Rossett Park for a Friday evening reserve game between Marine and Burscough (it would have been impolite to decline the invitation). I was told it was officially opened by Cherie Blair but I’ve not seen that substantiated. For sure, there certainly wasn’t anyone quite like Carole Caplin doing the teas.
« Last Edit: Aug 7, 2010, 11:07pm by Barton Downs »
I guess a community of Kirkby's size - and type - always encouraged the idea it had "potential" for football (hence the big plans for Knowsley United at one time). Not to be, perhaps, although you wonder if AFC Liverpool (whatever that's all about) might have made more of a go there than at Prescot.
As for Kirkby itself, I can't think of the place without hearing the Z Cars theme inside my head (wasn't it the inspiration for "Newtown"?) and the old all-too-obvious joke about why the animals are fenced in at Knowsley Safari Park.