Maurice Smith

Thirds and Queen’s: side by side but a world apart

Summer 2017 sees two football clubs situated less than a mile apart mark very different anniversaries. At Hampden, Queen’s Park’s 150th anniversary will be celebrated with the honour due to a club acknowledged to have invented the ‘passing game’ that ushered in modern football. On a darker note, 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the death of Third Lanark, among Scotland’s leading clubs during the late 19th century, which collapsed amidst fraud allegations and bitter acrimony in 1967. We talked to some of the modern-day heroes at Hampden, and the man leading the campaign to restore Third Lanark to senior football.