IT was a tiny mining village which became known as the ‘cradle of football’ for the rate it churned out professional players, including six Scottish Internationals and four FA Cup winners.

As well as furnishing the playing side of the beautiful game, Glenbuck in Ayrshire also supplied the dugout with one of its greatest talents - the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly.

But when the mine closed, work dried up and the small settlement was abandoned and lost to history, its buildings crumbling to ruin and its famous football pitch, Burnside Park, sinking into a bog.

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However, the full-time whistle has not yet blown on the village’s legacy, and extra time beckons after a project by the Scottish Mines Restoration Trust and Ayrshire Council restored some of its glory for future generations to enjoy.

Today will see the official opening of the Glenbuck Heritage Village, after work was carried out to restore what remains of the site and make it more welcoming for visitors.

Hundreds of Liverpool fans travel to the village each year to honour Shankly’s memory, and now the site of his childhood home has been marked out to serve as a place of pilgrimage.

Professor Russel Griggs, Chairman of Scottish Mines Restoration Trust, said: “We’re celebrating the restoration of all the open-cast mine sites in Scotland which is now complete or well underway. When the work is carried out we always want to do something for the community, and here at Glenbuck it was decided that we restore the village, at least in some small part, and make it more attractive for people to visit.

“It’s still a draw for people on Merseyside an even while we were carrying out the work two men came from Wales to see Shankly’s birthplace.”

Although Glenbuck still features on maps of Scotland, opencast mining has all but eradicated its footprint.

Burnside Park, the football pitch where Shankly and his four brothers first played, is one of the few sites to have survived. It will form the foundation of a regeneration project that will restore Glenbuck’s proud footballing pedigree.

Despite having a population which never topped more than 1,200, Glenbuck produced over 50 professional footballers, thanks to its famous team, the Cherrypickers.

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Formed in 1872, the origins of the team’s name has been lost to history, with some sources saying it derived from from a regiment which fought in the Boer war which a few villagers joined, while others say it refers to the job of ‘cherrypicking’ lumps of good coal from the rubble that came out the mine.

Until its demise in 1931, the club produced players who would go on to grace the pitches of Celtic, Rangers, Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Dundee, Kilmarnock, Hamilton Academical, Heart of Midlothian, Ayr and Stranraer in Scotland. 

Others went south to Tottenham Hotspur, Everton, Arsenal, Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, Preston North End, Liverpool, Sheffield Wednesday, Aston Villa, Portsmouth and Manchester City.

The first to turn professional was Alex Tait. He won an English FA Cup winner’s medal with Spurs against Sheffield United in the 1901 final at Burnden Park, watched by a crowd of almost 115,000. 

In gratitude, Spurs allowed the Cup to cross the border and be displayed in a Glenbuck shop window.

From then on player after player swapped miners boots for football boots at the first opportunity, among them Bill Shankly and his four brothers.

Those who went on to represent Scotland included Willie Muir in 1907), Sandy Brown in 1902 and 1904, Johnny Crosbie in 1920 and England in 1922.

Also capped were Bob Shankly in 1938 and Bill Shankly, who was capped thirteen times between 1938 and 1943, while George Halley turned out for a Scottish League select against an English Football League team in 1910.

The restoration work has involved raising new walls at the site of the Shankly family cottage back to their original height, and re-siting the memorial to the great coach which used to sit at the entrance to the village inside.

The former church spire has been re-erected and memorials to the village’s inhabitants which had been taken away to nearby Muirkirk when the settlement was abandoned, have been returned.

Notice boards guiding visitors around the former village have been installed, and the famous pitch was been marked out once again.

Professor Griggs said: “The pitch was well named because it was basically a wasteland with water flowing over it. 

“One of our diggers almost sank in to its axle the other day.

“But you can now see where it was and where the great Cherrypickers played, and get an idea of the sort of conditions which spawned so many great footballers.We’re astonishingly pleased at how good the restoration has been, not just of the village but of the open-cast mine site itself. It was just a desolate state but now it is somewhere we hope people take pleasure in visiting once again.”