The football match crowd at Hampden were renowned for creating the Hampden Roar and trying to terrify opposing teams. The stadium's capacity exceeded 100,000 from the early 1900s until the 1980s and the Roar could be heard whenever Scotland scored an important goal. After the renovation of the stadium and the reduced capacities, the roar has become more muted.
The Hampden Roar was first noticed in a game against England in 1929. Scotland, who had played the second half with ten players due to an injury to Alex Jackson, equalised in the final minute with a goal from Alec Cheyne direct from a corner kick. The roar that followed the goal was so loud that Jackson, who was a mile away in the Glasgow Victoria Infirmary, could tell that Scotland had scored.
The phrase Hampden Roar is also used as rhyming slang. People from Glasgow may ask, "What's the Hampden?", by which they mean "What is the score?" or "How are you?".
Read more about this topic: Hampden Park
Famous quotes containing the word roar:
“In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)