Mascot Clyde is airborne

Thanks to sporty schoolgirl – 12-year-old Beth Gilmour from Cumbernauld – the Commonwealth Games 2014 now has an official mascot! Her design for a thistle figure with purple hair, green body, golden running shorts, and a saltire flag running vest won a UK wide competition which attracted 4000 entries.

Named ‘Clyde’ after the River Clyde, the mascot was unveiled with great excitement today (Thursday 20 September 2012) at the BBC Scotland HQ in Pacific Quay, Glasgow.

Beth met Michael Jamieson, Olympic silver medal swimmer and Rebecca Adlington, Olympic bronze medal swimmer. ‘It hasn’t sunk in yet,’ said the schoolgirl badminton player who also swims. Earlier she’d commented: ‘It’s amazing to see Clyde come to life. I hope everyone loves him as much as I do.’

Hosted by Sam and Mark, children’s tv personalities; the event saw  Mascot Clyde  swing into the arena  from the upper reaches of the BBC’s vast interior, much to the delight of the crowd.

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.

Title dream still alive for Partick Thistle

Ian McCall claimed his Thistle team are still in the hunt for the Scottish First Division title after watching them win ugly over bottom club Airdrie United.
It was Thistle’s first win since early January and brings to a welcome end to their losing streak.
With Dundee’s match at Ayr postponed and Ross County drawing with Dunfermline, the three points keep the Glasgow side’s faint promotion hopes alive.
Speaking after the match, McCall said: ‘Nothing is settled yet, we have a lot to do and we need all our injured players back, but I’m delighted with the win.’
Paul Cairney scored twice as Partick Thistle put Airdrie to the sword.
Cairney followed up to finish off a Liam Buchanan effort that was fumbled by the Airdrie ‘keeper Stephen Robertson, giving Thistle a 29th-minute lead at Firhill.
The former Queen’s Park player added his second with a low drive shortly before half time.
The home side were penned in by struggling Airdrie, who started the second half brightly but found Jonny Tuffey in the Thistle goal in top form.
However, it should be noted that referee Scott McDonald helped out Thistle when he waved away strong penalty claims after substitute Scott Gemmill was bundled to the floor by David Rowson.
Indeed, The Jags came back into the match and may well have added to their lead.
Steve Lovell can think himself unlucky not to score following an effort that struck the inside of the post and crept along the goal line.
A bizarre refereeing performance was capped in the closing 10 minutes as McDonald red-carded a player from each team.
The visitors’ Alan Trouten and Thistle’s Rowson were sent to an early bath for second yellow cards in the closing stages, neither of which merited a foul, let alone a card.

Kelvingrove exhibit celebrates 100 years of Girl Guides

Kelvingrove Art Gallery is hosting a Girlguiding Centenary Exhibition from 14 November to 17 January 2010.

Glasgow Guider Alyson Purves and the Scottish Guiding Activities Team put together the thought-provoking exhibition, which was opened by Liz Burnley, the Chief Guide.

The organisation was founded after large numbers of girls attended a Scouts rally in London in 1909, asking to join. Boy Scout Movement founder Robert Baden-Powell recognised that demand and, in 1910, asked his sister, Agnes, to lead the newly-formed Girl Guides.

Thumbing its nose at Edwardian society’s dismay over girls hiking, camping and enjoying the activities then reserved for boys, the Girl Guides – now Girlguiding UK – has grown into a 575,000-strong movement with a network of 60,000 volunteer leaders.

The Kelvingrove exhibition focuses on the positive impact Guiding has had on many girls and young women over the past 100 years and features personal items belonging to Glasgow Guiding pioneer Allison Cargill, who in 1910 formed the Cuckoo Patrol which later became the Thistle Patrol of Guides.