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From its earliest days Celtic have always promoted the use of their stadium for sports other than football. Here are some of the more notable sporting events to be held at the Parkhead ground.
Other Sports Played at Celtic Park
- Athletics & Sports Days
- Baseball
- Boxing
- Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony (2014)
- Cycling
- eSports
- Greyhound Racing
- Hockey (Field Hockey)
- Pedestrianism
- Police Sports
- Pushball
- Rugby League
- Rugby Union
- Shinty & GAA
- Speedway
- Special Olympics Opening Ceremony
- Tug-of-War
- Weightlifting World Record!
The Annual Celtic Sports Meeting
For almost 40 years from the inaugural event at the original Celtic Park in 1890 Celtic hosted an annual sports meeting. The meeting was traditionally held in early August prior to the start of the football season and was a major event in the club’s calendar. The meeting attracted top athletes from across Britain and even from America with the facilities at Celtic Park proving popular with competitors and spectators.
The meetings featured a whole host of event with cycling and athletics the big crowd pullers. It wasn’t unusual for the meeting to attract crowds of 25,000 and in 1920 some 40,000 gathered to see Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner immortalised in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire.
Athletics & Sports Days
Baseball
On September 28th 1918 Celtic Park hosted a baseball game between teams representing the US Forces based on Clydeside. The game was part of a sports meeting involving Allied Forces and was a fund-raiser for a forces hospital in France. A crowd of 12,000 helped to raise the then considerable sum of £500.
Boxing
The first bout staged at Celtic Park was in June 2nd 1937 when a crowd of 20,000 saw World flyweight champion Benny Lynch lose on points to Belfast’s Jim Warnock in a non-title fight. On May 18th 1949 some 15,000 watched a bill which was topped by Billy Thopson of England defending his European and Commonwealth lightweight titles against Motherwell’s Harry Hughes.
Cycling –
Apart from the Celtic Sports Meeting the ground also hosted the World Cycling Championships in 1897 and the event attracted a crowd of more than 40,000.
Greyhound Racing
Pushball
One of the most curious sports ever played at Celtic must have been “Pushball”. Before you ask, this is a strange sport that was popular in US Universities that made it’s way over to Europe, but was no more than a curiosity.
Shinty & Hurling
The GAA organised a Hurling Exhibition Match at Celtic Park in September 1893. The teams played under the names of “Celtic” and “Brian Boru”.
Scotland and Ireland clashed at Celtic Park on June 21st 1913 in a match organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Ireland were represented by All Ireland champions Kilkenny while Scotland were made up of a select side featuring the best players from clubs in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire.
Patriotic Sports
‘Patriotic Sports’ (Glasgow Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), Friday, June 22, 1900;)
Pedestrianism
Pedestrianism was a 19th-century form of competitive walking, often professional and funded by wagering, from which the modern sport of racewalking developed. The distances were long and before organised sports like football it was a bit of a game. Gambling was the main thing.
Police Sports
Glasgow Police Sports (and Five a Side) (Glasgow Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), Friday, June 23, 1899)
Rugby League
A crowd of around 3,000 watched Australia fighback to snatch a dramatic 17-17 draw with England at Celtic Park on February 3rd 1909. The game was played in horrendous rain. The visiting Australian team was an important set of players dubbed the “Pioneers” who helped to establish the game for the Australians, and Celtic Park is proud to have hosted the “Kangaroos” (as the national team is called).
Speedway
A crowd of 5,000 watched what is believed to have been the first ever organised speedway meeting in Britain at Celtic Park on April 8th 1928. The event was organised by Dirt Track Speedways who were trying to promote the event in sport in Scotland. They followed the April meeting with an exhibition of speedway racing during the interval of the Glasgow Charity Cup tie with Rangers on May 5th.
Special Olympics
Celtic Park was the venue for the opening of the European Summer Special Olympics which was held in the Strathclyde region in the summer of 1990. The opening ceremony was held on July 21st and was attended by 32,000 people.
Tug-of-War
Tug-of-war (Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin, Ireland), Saturday, September 23, 1893)
Weight Lifting
- Link
World record was broken on Sat 12th Aug 1899
