History

A brief history of the Club

For over a hundred years there has been a sports club in Gartcosh. In the late 1800s a cricket club stood on the site of the yet-to-come steel works. Since then the village and its community have founded many different sports and wellbeing clubs. And, over the years, these clubs have amalgamated into the Gartcosh Works Social Club that exists today.

The Club's modern history began on 23rd May, 1965. On this day the predecessor to the Club (The Works' Club Association, see "New Pavilion" notice) and several smaller affiliated groups were brought together as the Gartcosh Works Social Club. This date marks the start of a 20-year heyday in which the Club's premises were built, adjusted and extended several times.

The engine for this expansion and progress was the steel works and the community built around it. Colville's (as it was called at the time) occasionally gave support to renovation projects or wellbeing causes. However, a willing but voluntary community group can take almost all of the credit for building the Club into its present form.

In 1985, just before the demise of the steel works, the Club had approximately 4,000 members. After the work's closure and throughout the nineties the membership fell to around 1,000 people. It sits just below that figure today.

Below is a transcript of the Chairman's statement from the 6th April, 1973. It was written to announce the third extension to the Club's premises, the extension which converted it into the building we recognise today.

The Club wishes to thank the Gartcosh Local History Group for helping with this article.

6 April, 1973

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FROM THE CHAIRMAN

Gartcosh village has been fortunate in that among its inhabitants there have always been men and women prepared to devote their leisure hours promoting sporting and social activities.

The first cricket club was formed over 100 years ago. The youngsters lost interest when the club wicket was covered over during the building of the Strip Mill.

The Bowling Club, I believe, is now the oldest existing club, having been opened in 1926.

Sporting clubs in the beginning functioned separately. Later the "Works Athletic Association" was formed to centralise sport. This association gave aid to any club in difficulty and also promoted indoor and outdoor activities. Members paid two pence ('tuppence' in pre-decimal currency) per week. Two representatives of each club plus a departmental representative formed the W.A.A Committee. The success of this original committee is reflected by the number of clubs still in existence.

With the opening of the Strip Mill began a new era; new faces appeared on the committee and eventually the W.A.A became the W.C.A (Works Clubs Association). A suggestion that we should have a Social Club was pursued and, Colville's giving permission, the old clubhouse was transformed, by voluntary labour and the sum of £100 borrowed from the W.C.A., into the first Social Club with the added facility of a Bar.

It was quickly apparent that the Building was too small and an extension costing £2,000 was speedily added.

However, once started the idea did not stop. In 1968 the new Club opened and the first club was converted into a Bowling Clubhouse and Football Pavilion. Other clubs were formed, all affiliated to the W.C.A. The path of progress made evident that the Main Club was the Social Club and the obvious solution was to allow the W.C.A. to be absolved by the Social Club.

Details of the affiliated clubs are quoted elsewhere.

The present Management Committee have carried on with the forward thinking and today we open our third extension. We will stop here and after a breathing space, planned future alterations will go ahead. I ask all our members, therefore, to support their committee, as they have in the past.

With your co-operation our fourth and fifth improvements will soon be under way.

In anticipation of this help I thank you.

KENNETH R. JORDAN

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