From its earliest days Celtic have always promoted the use of their stadium for sports other than football. Here are some of the more noteable sporting events to be held at the Parkhead ground.


The Annual Celtic Sports Meeting - For almost 40 years from the inugural event at the original Celtic Park in 1890 Celtic hosted an annual sports meeting. The meeting was tradtionally 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 imortalised in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire.
However the effect of war and unemployment would hit the event and by the end of the decade the once popular annual meeting was no more.

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.

Hurling - 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.

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 Olmpics which was held in the Strathclyde region in the summer of 1992. The opening ceremony was held on July 21st and was attended by 32,000 people.

Links

• Jack Eller sets World Record Hurdles time at Celtic Park