Hampden Park ( ; Scottish Gaelic: Pàirc Hampden), currently known as Barclays Hampden for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. It is the national stadium of football in Scotland and home of the Scotland national football team. Hampden Park is owned by the Scottish Football Association (SFA), and regularly hosts the semi-finals and finals of the Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. The largest stadium in the world by capacity from its opening 1903 until 1950, Hampden Park is the 11th-largest football stadium in the United Kingdom, and the second-largest football stadium in Scotland. The stadium retains all attendance records recorded in European football.
A UEFA category four stadium, Hampden Park has hosted six European finals including the 1960 European Cup final between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt which, with a crowd of 127,621 in attendance, is the highest ever recorded attendance for a European Cup final. The stadium houses the offices of the Scottish Football Association (SFA) and Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) and has hosted three European Cup/Champions League finals, two Cup Winners' Cup finals and a UEFA Cup final. It has hosted other sporting events including the 2012 Olympic Games and the 2014 Commonwealth Games (also hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games closing ceremony). Scotland was one of the eleven host countries of the Euro 2020 tournament with the stadium hosting the round of 16 matches and will host matches of Euro 2028, of which Scotland is again one of the host countries.
A stadium on the present site opened on 31 October 1903, with a capacity in excess of 100,000. This was increased between 1927 and 1937, reaching a peak of 150,000. The record attendance of 149,415, for Scotland v England in 1937, is the European record for an international football match. Tighter safety regulations meant that the capacity was reduced to 81,000 in 1977. The stadium has been fully renovated since then, with the most recent significant work being completed in 1999. Ahead of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Hampden Park underwent modifications to the stadium to include a running track and other features required for hosting the games.
History Three Hampdens
Queen's Park, the oldest club in Scottish football, first played at a venue called Hampden Park on 25 October 1873. That ground was overlooked by a nearby terrace named after Englishman John Hampden, who fought for the roundheads in the English Civil War. It hosted the first Scottish Cup Final, played in 1874, and a Scotland v England match in 1878.
The club moved to the second Hampden Park, 150 yards from the original, because the Cathcart District Railway planned a new line through the site of the ground's western terrace. A lawn bowling club at the junction of Queen's Drive and Cathcart Road marks the site of the first Hampden.The First Hampden Project, The Hampden Collection. Retrieved 14 October 2021 The second Hampden Park opened in October 1884. It became a regular home to the Scottish Cup Final, but Celtic Park shared some of the big matches including the Scotland v England fixture in 1894.
In the late 1890s, Queen's Park requested more land for development of the second Hampden Park. This was refused by the landlords, which led to the club seeking a new site. Henry Erskine Gordon agreed to sell 12 acres of land off Somerville Drive to Queen's Park in November 1899. James Miller designed twin grandstands along the south side of the ground with a pavilion wedged in between.Chapter XXXV.—Third and Greatest Hampden, History of the Queen's Park Football Club 1867 – 1917, Richard Robinson (1920), via Electric Scotland The natural slopes were shaped to form banks of terracing, designed by Archibald Leitch. Construction of the new ground took over three years to complete; during the process, a disaster occurred at Ibrox in which part of the wooden terraces collapsed. In response, the terraces at Hampden were firmly set in the earthwork and innovative techniques were used to control spectators.
Third Lanark A.C. took over the second Hampden Park in 1903 and renamed it Cathkin Park after their previous ground of the same name. The club rebuilt the ground from scratch due to a failure to agree a fee for the whole stadium which resulted in Queen's Park removing the pavilion and other fittings (which they owned, while the ground itself was leased).Second Hampden , QPFC.comChapter XL.—Third Lanark F.C. and Hampden Park, History of the Queen's Park Football Club 1867 – 1917, Richard Robinson (1920), via Electric Scotland During the first season following the move (1903–04, in which they finished as champions), Third Lanark played several of their home matches at the new Hampden while work was carried out on Cathkin Park. Third Lanark went out of business in 1967 and Cathkin Park is now a public park with much of the original terracing still evident.
In the stadium's first match on 31 October 1903 Queen's Park defeated Celtic 1–0 in the Scottish Football League,Chapter XXXVI.—Opening New Hampden, History of the Queen's Park Football Club 1867 – 1917, Richard Robinson (1920), via Electric Scotland having played eight of their first nine league matches away from home and the other at the old Cathkin ParkPaul Smith & Shirley Smith (2005) The Ultimate Directory of English & Scottish Football League Grounds Second Edition 1888–2005, Yore Publications, p152 awaiting its opening.(Queen's Park) Season Results Results For Season 1903/1904 in All Competitions, FitbaStats The first Scottish Cup Final played at the ground was an Old Firm match in 1904, attracting a record Scottish crowd of 64,672. The first Scotland v England match at the ground was played in April 1906 with 102,741 people in attendance, which established Hampden as the primary home of the Scotland team. Hampden Park was the biggest stadium in the world from the time of its opening until it was surpassed by the Maracanã in 1950. Along with Celtic Park and Ibrox, the city of Glasgow possessed the three largest football stadia in the world at the time Hampden opened.
Record attendances
Attendances continued to increase during the remainder of the 1900s, as 121,452 saw the 1908 Scotland v England match. The two Old Firm matches played for the 1909 Scottish Cup Final attracted a total of 131,000. After the second match there was a riot because there was confusion over what would happen next when the second match also ended in a draw. The fans believed that the replay would be played to a conclusion and demanded that a period of extra time be played. The Scottish Cup trophy was withheld as Hampden was not in a fit condition to host a second replay. In response to the riot, the Scottish Football Association decided to stop using Hampden as the Scottish Cup Final venue.
Queen's Park conducted extensive ground improvements after the 1909 riot. A new world record of 127,307 were in attendance to see Scotland play England in 1912. A fire in 1914 destroyed the pavilion, which was replaced by a four-storey structure with a press box on the roof. The Scottish Cup Final returned to Hampden in 1920, when a large crowd of 95,000 saw Kilmarnock win the cup against Albion Rovers. Record crowds attended the 1925 Scottish Cup Final, a 5–0 win for Celtic against Rangers, and the 1927 Scotland v England match, England's first win in the stadium. Hampden became the de facto sole venue of the Scottish Cup Final after 1925 and Queen's Park purchased more land in 1923 to bring the total to 33 acres. 25,000 places were added to the terraces and rigid crush barriers were installed in 1927.
World record crowds attended Scotland matches against England in 1931 and 1933. In 1933, Austria, who had beaten Scotland 5–0 in Vienna in 1931, became the first foreign national side to visit Hampden Park. After intervention from the Glasgow Corporation in 1935 regarding public order and safety of the huge, ever-increasing crowds attending matches in the city, Queen's Park and Hampden defeated a rival bid from Rangers and Ibrox – which itself already had a capacity well over 100,000 – to enlarge the ground at the expense of the club, in exchange for becoming the official venue for the Scotland v England fixture and the Cup Final (and collect a designated portion of gate receipts from these matches), while the city would provide improvements in transport provision and other infrastructure to support the regular influx of spectators to the venue.How Hampden Park became the largest football ground in the world, Douglas Norman, Scottish Sport History, 9 November 2020 This work increased the official theoretical capacity of the ground to 183,388 in 1937, but the SFA were only allowed to issue 150,000 tickets for games. The 1937 Scotland v England match had an official attendance of 149,415, but at least 20,000 more people entered the ground without tickets.Scotland 3 England 1 Archived on 22 March 2021, The Blizzard, 1 June 2015 A week later the 1937 Scottish Cup Final between Celtic and Aberdeen drew an official crowd of 147,365, with 20,000 more people locked outside; this stood as a world record for a club match until 1963. The 1938 and 1939 cup finals were contested by provincial sides and did not test the new capacity, but the England match of 1939 attracted 149,269.
Wartime During the Second World War, matches at heavily attended grounds were initially prohibited due to the fear of aerial bombing by the Luftwaffe. Scottish national league and cup competitions were suspended for the duration of the war, but regional league and cup competitions were established in their place. Attendance was initially restricted to 50 percent of capacity; therefore, when 75,000 attended a wartime cup final in May 1940, it was the maximum permitted. The Parashots, a forerunner of the Home Guard, set up a command post at Lesser Hampden in 1940. A government official presented an order demanding that both the Hampden and Lesser Hampden pitches be ploughed and used to plant vegetables, but the Queen's Park committee chose to ignore the order and the government did not pursue it. Wartime internationals were played at Hampden, and 91,000 saw Scotland beat England 5–4 on 18 April 1942.
Post-war After the Second World War ended in 1945, Hampden started to host Scotland matches more frequently. Before then, Hampden had only hosted 15 matches against England and one match each against Austria and Czechoslovakia. During the post-war attendance boom, Hampden was the only stadium big enough to host the crowds who wanted to see the team. Matches that would have ordinarily attracted a crowd of 40,000 were being attended by nearly 100,000. A fire on 25 December 1945 destroyed the stadium press box and damaged offices. The press box was replaced with a plainer two-storey structure that overhung the pitch. The Hampden fixture list was also expanded by the new Scottish League Cup competition. In 1947, Rangers defeated Aberdeen in the first League Cup Final, a year after a 135,000 crowd watched the last edition of its wartime predecessor, the Southern League Cup, played between the same teams.Aberdeen Win Deserved, The Glasgow Herald, 13 May 1945 The capacity of the ground was officially cut to 135,000 following the Burnden Park disaster in Bolton in March 1946, but before that reduction was confirmed, 139,468 watched the Scotland v England Victory International on 13 April of that year.