Hampden to host Brian Taylor’s Big Debate

The Editor of the Big Issue, Paul McNamee, former captain of Motherwell football club, Stephen Craigan, and a polemic of politicians will be in Hampden Park on Friday 21 September for the weekly radio show ‘Brian Taylor’s Big Debate.’

Broadcast live on BBC Radio Scotland from 12 noon till 1pm each Friday, the programme is based on questions from the audience. Said a programme spokesperson: ‘We look for questions on the most stimulating moral, political and social issues of the day – the current issues that will get people talking. The programme gives the audience the opportunity to challenge politicians, policy makers, writers and thinkers.’ Brief questions raising matters of genuine national interest and which are ‘newsy’ can be emailed to : brian@bbc.co.uk by 4pm on Thursday 20 September. To book a seat at the Debate which is broadcast live, go to : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-15190428 The location will be Lomond 2 Suite in Hampden Park on Letherby Drive Glasgow G42 9BA. Entry to the venue will be from 11am.

The politicians expected to spice up the debate will be Conservative MSP Jackson Carlaw, Labour MSP James Kelly and local SNP MSP, James Dornan.

Laura nets a well-deserved award

BY LYNSAY KEOUGH
Women’s football stalwart, Laura Montgomery won a top honour at the McDonald’s / Sunday Mail Grassroots Awards, in partnership with the Scottish FA.
Laura was named Best Volunteer in Women’s/Girl’s Football at the awards ceremony held at Hampden Park on the Thursday 3 February. The awards celebrate the tireless efforts of volunteers who keep football flourishing in communities across Scotland.
Laura co-founded Glasgow City Ladies Football Club in 1998. It has gone on to become the most successful Scottish women’s team, winning the last four Premier League titles in a row and being the first Scottish team to qualify for the Women’s UEFA Champions League.
An unprecedented achievement, Glasgow City Ladies was the only amateur team to get to this stage of the tournament.
Scotland legend and McDonald’s Head of Scottish Football, Kenny Dalglish, praised Laura’s work and encouraged more women and girls to take up the game. Speaking at the awards ceremony, Kenny said: ‘Football in communities is built on the sheer hard work of individuals like Laura. Laura’s dedication over the past 13 years has seen Glasgow City Ladies become the most successful women’s team in the country, and to advance into the last-16 of the UEFA Champions League as an amateur team, is a remarkable achievement which is yet to be matched. As a long-term supporter of grassroots football in Scottish communities, McDonald’s is proud to honour Laura and her team’s achievements.’
Laura added: ‘Winning this award is a wonderful honour. When we founded the club, we never imagined we’d end up winning the Premier League – let alone four times in a row. Alongside playing, I’ve also been responsible for our sponsorship, accounts, marketing and the website. While I always say I’ve got two full time jobs – my day job and my work for Glasgow City – I wouldn’t change a thing.’
The eighth McDonald’s / Sunday Mail Grassroots event covered ten categories including Best Volunteer in Youth Football, Grassroots Community Club and McDonald’s Community Champion Award.
Over the last eight years, McDonald’s has helped to improve football in Scotland, significantly. The scheme has created more than 2,000 new community coaches and 1,800 new football teams. And it has worked with a network of McDonald’s restaurant franchisees to provide kit and equipment to clubs through the club twinning programme.
Last year alone, McDonald’s helped to create over 700 new boys’ and girls’ teams in the local community.
For more information on McDonald’s coaching programme, please go to www.mcdonalds.co.uk

Hit the ground running and win a copy of Played In Glasgow

Football grounds, bowling greens, dog tracks, ‘doocots’, racecourses, blaes pitches, athletics tracks and swimming clubs; our city has had them all. Ged O’Brien’s book, Played in Glasgow, is a modestly-sized but mighty anthology that covers every sporting nook and cranny since Victorian times.
This is part of the superb Played In Britain series,  backed by Historic Scotland and English Heritage. The volume is subtitled ‘charting the heritage of a city at play’, and is a store of information for those of us who choose to look beyond the elegant stone facades, towering steel skeletons and pretty, manicured lawns.
Beyond Hampden Park, the home of Queen’s Park and Scotland’s international team, there are retrospectives on the homes of Rangers, Celtic, Partick Thistle, Clyde and the bullish ranks of Glasgow Junior football.
O’Brien also looks at the homes of the city’s many rugby teams and enjoys our rich bowling heritage, all recorded with excellent photography and detailed with the care of a first-class reference work.
Played In Glasgow has a section on swimming baths and clubs, from the elegant but forgotten municipal pools of the late 1800s to their 21st century heirs and the architectural wonders of the Western and the Arlington Baths clubs.
The book also strikes a nostalgic tone with a look at the city’s remaining red ash ‘blaes’ pitches and takes a flight into the world of the Glasgow pigeon fancier and their home-built doocots. Neither does it neglect cricketing heritage nor pass by the huge achievements of our many athletes over the years.
With one eye on Glasgow’s place as host for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, this book is a roadmap that shows us how far we have come, what we have won, what we have lost and hints at what could yet be.
A blend of social and cultural history and a treat with archive and modern photography, sometimes evocative and occasionally controversial, Played In Glasgow is an essential addition to the book collection of anyone who has an eye for their city’s sporting heritage.

LOCAL NEWS GLASGOW has three copies of Played in Glasgow to give away.
For a chance to win your own copy, just write and tell us which football teams play their home games at Hampden Park.

Send your answers by email to competitions@localnewsglasgow.co.uk. Please put ‘PLAYED IN GLASGOW COMPETITION’ in the header field and remember your name, address and a daytime telephone number. You can also enter by snail mail, please write with your answer to Played In Glasgow Competition, Local News Glasgow, YAM Publications, Third Floor, 142 West Nile Street G1 2RQ. Don’t forget all your contact details.

This competition closed at 9am on Monday, May 24.