SOMETIMES history happens in unexpected places. Travel Glasgow's Maryhill Road and you are unaware that just behind the grey concrete Job Centre is the ground of Maryhill Juniors, wedged behind a Royal Mail distribution centre and a car repair garage, yet surprisingly rural with its surrounding of trees.
On Saturday fledgling football club BSC Glasgow played its first ever Scottish Cup tie there against Ayrshire Junior behemoths Auchinleck Talbot, and earned a creditable draw. For those ancient football fans in Glasgow who mourn the passing of Third Lanark, BSC is now Glasgow's fifth team, playing in the fifth tier of Scottish football in the Lowland League which is a route that in theory could take them all the way to the Premiership.
But BSC is no ordinary football club. It is actually Broomhill Sports Club; it has no ground of its own, and the senior football team that stoutly held off The Talbot, is merely the tip of the Broomhill iceberg. It is a club run by parents and volunteers that ensures that 750 children, mainly in the west end, get the benefit of sport every week, irrespective of their ability.
It is this mass participation that drives them. The club's volunteers want young people to take part in sport as the health benefits are known to all, yet the number of teenagers playing sport is lamentably low. Sir Alex Ferguson recently blamed the Thatcher Government that took on Scottish teachers in a wages and conditions dispute that led to fewer teachers volunteering to take charge of after-school sports. Another issue is that football teams for teenagers become selective, seeking out the better players with those of lesser ability becoming disillusioned and giving up.
Broomhill Sports Club has the more lofty ambition of becoming a pathway to lifelong sporting participation, welcoming children of all ages and abilities. After all, we might dream of becoming professional footballers, but so few of us can. BSC has looked at the figures, with a club spokesman explaining to me: "We have a great record of sending players to professional teams - more than 50 boys in the last 10 years. While this is an achievement in itself, the reality is that all but a handful of boys from BSC are still at professional clubs.
"This is of course the nature of elite football. Less than 0.1% of people playing the game can claim to be ‘professional’. Of those players it’s also worth noting that the percentage of professional players earning a living wage from football in Scotland is less than 20%. Our concern is that only a handful of boys who are rejected by professional clubs' youth teams have returned to playing for BSC, with most giving up the game altogether. We understand that this is common practise for these rejected players who become disheartened, feel like failures and fall out of love with the game."
It used to be school teams, and even the Boys Brigade, that provided the outlet for teenage football. I'm sure I must still have a bag of grit in my knees from years of BB football on the dodgiest of pitches. But both have dwindled over the years. BSC wants itself, and similar clubs, to step in. But it's hard work. I speak to BSC chairman Stephen Prince at the Auchinleck game - well almost everyone there spoke to Stephen as he was not only collecting gate money at the turnstile but also selling programmes. Being a volunteer chairman does not mean that you sit in lofty isolation in a boardroom. "It's exciting for us," he says, "that the club is in the Scottish Cup for the first time ever, but the team is actually a beacon for the rest of what we do. The icing on the cake I suppose."
I couldn't list all that the club does, it is so myriad. There are little four-a-side kickabouts for tots, seven-a-sides up to 11-year-olds, then full 11-a-sides for all the teenage years, then amateur sides and of course the senior side battling it out in Maryhill. I worry for their stocky number 10 who inevitably receives chants of "Who ate all the pies" from Talbot supporters, but he does have a fierce shot. Then the Talbot fans turn on their own team chanting "We hate the high ball, oh yes we do" when the men in blue try longer speculative balls rather than a passing game. It's not easy pleasing a Talbot fan.
Oh and there are women's netball sides as well at BSC, again all run by volunteers and without their own facilities. The club has applied to Glasgow City Council to build premises on the neglected blaes pitches at Victoria Park in Whiteinch. Someone else has proposed a bar and restaurant which one senses the council would be happy with. Another group, tree huggers, and I mean that warmly, prefer a more natural garden for the site. The council, fearful of upsetting folk before an election, has put it out for the inevitable consultation. I suspect I'll be walking over the shabby unused blaes for some time to come.
Do you remember when the Commonwealth Games was supposed to usher in a new era of sports involvement in Glasgow? Well, BSC is trying to do that, but with little official help. The Scottish Football Association is supportive, but as Stephen points out, the SFA is judged on what Gordon Strachan's team achieves - putting resources into grassroots sport is not what they are going to be judged on.
Stephen is a bit of a proselytiser, and he makes the case that diverting NHS funds to making people fitter and healthier would actually save money in the long-run for the health service, but no one has the long-term vision in politics to actually propose doing so.
Meanwhile I do my bit for healthy living by avoiding the pies on sale at the Maryhill ground. They do look good though. On the pitch BSC has scored a late equaliser to take the tie to a replay this Saturday in Ayrshire. Whatever the outcome, a dedicated team of parents and volunteers will still be working away every week to bring sport to the young people of Glasgow's west end. They are the ones that really deserve the cheers and clapping.
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