Lesser Hampden

Lesser Hampden is a football stadium in Mount Florida, Glasgow, Scotland, which is located immediately beside the western end of Hampden Park stadium.

History

In 1923, Queen's Park were looking for an alternative venue for their reserves and youth teams, with a basic pitch to the south of the main stand at Hampden Park increasingly being used as a car park.Lesser Hampden
QPFC.com The club purchased a farm on the west side of Hampden and built a pitch and stands. When it opened in 1924, Lesser Hampden had a capacity of 12,000. To reduce costs, the original farmhouse building was retained and was converted into a pavilion and dressing room. This farmhouse, now demolished, which dated back to the 19th century, was believed by football historians to be the oldest existing football stadium building in the world. The changing rooms were closed in 2013 for safety reasons.

During World War II, Lesser Hampden was commandeered by the British Government to serve as a base for the Home Guard. There were proposals to convert the site back to agriculture if there were food shortages, but the ground was returned to the football club at the end of the war in 1945.

During the 1970s, several Queen's Park first team games were played at the stadium. During the redevelopment of the main Hampden Park stadium in the 1990s, the club played Scottish Football League matches at this ground. The ground served as a staging area for pre-game tailgate parties hosted by the Scottish Claymores American football team when they played at Hampden Park.

During preparations to make use of the site for the 2002 UEFA Champions League Final, it was discovered that Lesser Hampden was tainted with toxic chromium, a byproduct from an old chemicals plant located in nearby Rutherglen. This was cleaned up at a cost of around £40,000.

Lesser Hampden is tightly hemmed in to the west by surrounding housing and commercial developments. It has some areas of terracing, floodlights and a small covered grandstand adjacent to the original farmhouse building. The natural grass pitch was replaced with a 3rd-Generation astro-grass pitch (funded partly by donations from local businessman Willie Haughey and partly from proceeds from well-attended cup ties) and was used as a warm-up area for athletes competing in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, as the track and field events were held at Hampden Park. Like the main stadium it was temporarily converted into an athletics venue and thereafter returned to football use.

Since Hampden's 1999 redevelopment, a row of Portakabins on the north side of the Lesser Hampden pitch had housed the Queen's Park club offices, with a proposed rebuild of the site as an elite youth development facility never materialising.Queen’s Park face a race against time
The Scotsman, 24 March 2002 In 2013 a new clubhouse at the south-west corner was completed, named the '' J. B. McAlpine Pavilion'' to honour the club's record goalscorer.Lesser Hampden J.B. McAlpine Pavillion Construction
QPFC.com

Adoption as a league stadium

In September 2018, it was announced that Queen's Park would return to Lesser Hampden to play first team matches on a permanent basis after agreeing to sell Hampden Park itself to the Scottish FA, which had been leasing the larger ground as the base for the national team. In November 2019, the club released plans to upgrade Lesser Hampden to an SPFL-standard venue which included an extension of the existing west stand, a new east stand and associated facilities, with a seating capacity of 1,774.Glasgow's Queen's Park reveal stadium plans for Lesser Hampden
Evening Times, 21 November 2019 Work on Lesser Hampden was delayed, which meant that Queen's Park had to groundshare at the Falkirk Stadium, at Firhill and then at Ochilview Park after their lease on Hampden expired.

The club released a revised plan in early December 2021; within two weeks, demolition of the farmhouse and byre had commenced.Residents react to demolition of Lesser Hampden farmhouse in Glasgow's Mount Florida
Sara Paciaroni, Glasgow Times

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