Third Lanark was one of the top clubs in Scottish football for the first 50 years of its existence. Formed in 1872, Thirds were
founder members of the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Football League, whose championship they won in 1904. They were
twice winners of the Scottish Cup, and their last two grounds, both called Cathkin Park, hosted Scottish Cup Finals and Scotland international
matches.
In its last decade, the club played in a Scottish League Cup Final and finished third in the First Division, scoring 100 League
goals in the process. This distinguished history, and the impressive list of Scottish international footballers to have played for
the club, make it all the more bewildering that they were allowed to die in 1967, in their 95th year.
Their death has been popularly
attributed to the actions of their majority shareholder for the last five years of the club’s existence, but the reason for the club’s
demise is not quite as simple and as straightforward as the mismanagement by one man.
The seeds of the club’s destruction were sewn
as far back as the very early years of the 20th century, and the confluence of events which eventually led to its extinction include
decades of disharmony amongst shareholders and in the boardroom, the cost of purchasing (the second) Cathkin Park, the expense of
developing it as a modern ground which could hold over 40,000 spectators for Glasgow derbies, the financial burden of full-time football
and the difficulty in replacing top class players who either retired, or were transferred for substantial fees.
While these undercurrents
were loosening the foundations of the famous old club, the club’s loyal band of supporters were watching the ups and downs of its
playing fortunes.
Both stories, on field and off, are told concurrently in the pages of this book. Also included are full statistics
of matches played in League and Cups, and the players who played in them. Initially a story of endeavour and success, it has
the saddest possible ending nearly a century later. The book explains how and why this happened, and gives the reasons why the
club which launched the careers of Jimmy Brownlie, Jimmy Mason, Jimmy Denmark, Jimmy Carabine, Ally McLeod, Bobby Mitchell, Ronnie
Simpson, and the famous forward line of Goodfellow, Hilley, Harley, Gray and McInnes, is no longer with us.