Castlemilk Community Trust has built a £1.5million football centre at Barlia that now serves as a hub for the Glasgow scheme, hosting a new Junior side that beat fellow newcomers St Pat's 6-1 in a West of Scotland Football League Fourth Division match in front of a record 201 paying spectators.
The Barlia community centre features a mural honouring local football heroes including Eddie Gray, James McCarthy, James McArthur and Arthur Graham. John Harkins, charity manager of the trust, said the gates are left open each evening so children can keep playing after staff finish at six, with two dog walkers holding keys to tell kids when their time is up before locking the pitches for the night.
Harkins, 57, was born and bred in Castlemilk and lived across the street from the Gray family in Cavin Drive. He only played amateur football himself but has become a driving force behind the transformation of the site.
The facility had lain abandoned, covered in graffiti, with the old pitch scarred by fires started by vandals. Harkins said the pitch is now pristine, free of graffiti, and that there is a sense of ownership among those who use it.
Rebuilding a derelict site
Harkins said tons of rubbish had to be moved from the site before work could begin. The new pitch and refurbished centre cost about £1.5million, funded largely by the Scottish Government, the UK Government and the Scottish Football Association.
Since 2022, the trust has revamped a facility that had been closed for two years, provided a home pitch for 24 local teams, run free football camps and given the community a hub. Harkins said more than 1,000 people pass through the facilities every week, and that the club now includes an amateur side and an under-20s team alongside the new West of Scotland Football League side.
Jim Fay, who manages the facility, gave a tour of the dressing rooms, which have lighting that can be adjusted to match team strips, along with a boardroom holding trophies from the amateur era and a café area overlooking the pitches. Fay called it "some place."
A manager with football pedigree
Denis McDaid, manager of the new Junior side, played with Steve Clarke, the future Scotland national coach, at St Mirren Boys' Club, signed for Jim McLean's Dundee United as a young player, and later coached at Clyde and Hamilton, where he watched James McCarthy and James McArthur develop into top players.
McDaid, who arrived at the club after the Covid pandemic as restructuring work was gathering pace, said the team had made good strides, becoming a force in amateur football and winning five trophies before stepping up to the West of Scotland league. He said originally being from the Gorbals meant football had always been part of his life, and that he loved it at every level.
Players are not paid, but they no longer have to pay the monthly £40 fee that was mandatory under the previous amateur set-up. McDaid, who works as a sales manager, said the club works hard and enjoys it, and that they will see where it takes them.
Funding and the road ahead
Danny Cusick, chair of the trust, is originally from Castlemilk but lived away for a long time, including abroad. He recalled the site as a boy, with red ash and no pavilion.
Cusick said his approach was that if you want to do something, you should do it properly. A charity was registered, trustees were enlisted and funding moves accelerated. He said his background working for Scottish Enterprise in economic development helped, and that a business plan was drawn up alongside a 25-year lease.
Cusick said the trust has raised £1.4million to transform the site, citing the Scottish and UK Governments, Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Football Association as major backers. He said the site had gone from nothing, worse than nothing given its previous state, to an impressive facility that would otherwise have been abandoned and lost to the community.
Cusick said more than 40 children come to the centre every day through the summer holidays to play and be fed, and that for some of them it is the only decent food they get in a day. He described preserving the facility as his passion and said it was about using football for good.
He pointed to the absence of any graffiti or vandalism as evidence the approach is working, saying the structure gives children the message that the facility belongs to them and that they need to look after it.
