Was wondering in 1967 jsut before the club closed and when it did close was there any fans protests outside the gates of Cathkin or outside the SFA Offices about what had happened to this great club. Im thinking of recent examples where Airdrieonians fans protested a couple of years back outside the KPMG Offices, or the Clydebank fans who chained themselves to the goalposts.
Have to say as a mere 13 year old at the time i don't have any recollection of any opposition generated.Thirds fan base was down to about 250 and i reckon there was an awareness that, although the club was in financial difficulties...'we'll get over it', unfortunatlely this was not the case and as i have said in a previous post 'they slipped quietly out the back door'.
I know what your saying about 'fighting the closure' and what happened to Thirds in 1967 would not have been allowed to happen today eg Airdrie, Clydebank etc and to be honest and looking at the situation in hindsight Thirds were on the slippery slope from 1964ish and really any 'fan protest' or unrest should have started then but the average fan didn't have the 'nous' as to what was really going on. In those days if you didn't read it in the 'green' Citizen or the 'pink' Times then it wasn't happening whereas nowadays the fans are much more aware of the machinations, financial situation and wheelings and dealings the 'club' had embarked on.
I guess a similar case scenario today is your own clubs current plight where you've watched them spiral down from the Premier League to League 2 with crowds dropping and getting perhaps into financial difficulties and now the fans are beginning to show their concern not that the team is going to get worse but that they might go out of business. So what do you do...hold a meeting with the fans...find out the 'real' situation (cards on the table)...find out who's to blame...take over the club...look for a financier...It didn't happen like that then the fans just weren't as worldly as they are now and really i don't think any Thirds fan thought that closure would happen...sadly there were no 'sugar daddies' about then.
Have to say you've put me on a 'guilt trip' and really something should have been done
bigeye wrote: . Have to say you've put me on a 'guilt trip' and really something should have been done Bigeye
Sorry didnt mean to do that. From the historical perspective the only ones who should feel guilty are Hiddelston and his associates. As yopu say there was nothing like the media power of today. We need only look at Raith Rovers under Anelka, where the internet, wide press coverage, television changes to football made sure he did not last long at Raith Rovers and Im not saying Anelka was anything like Hiddelston anyway. It seems pretty obvious only now that it was a deliberate systematic attempt to run down the club but only at a very slow pace and as you say in 1967 there would not be the fans trusts etc that exist today who in most clubs now have seats on the board.
Back then failure to do so meant that the likes of Hiddelston could do damage without the supporters knowing what was really going on.
Perhaps if there was one good thing to come from the sad demise of Third Lanark, it was that the fans of other teams would not accept something similar happening to their club. Examples of this can be found at many clubs, e.g. Airdrie, Falkirk, Partick Thistle, Middilsboro, and Celtic, to name only a few. I get the feeling that from the middle of the 1960 until the club's liquidation in 1967, most Thirds fans probably didn't ever beleive that the club would actually go out of business.
