“Big scrap! Big scrap!” The cry would go up during another dreary lunchtime. Westwood sits in place of the old scrapyard
Heads would turn in all directions as teenage boys looked in vain for the latest fight in the school playground.
“Where?” someone would shout.
“Eastwoods,” came the sarcastic reply.
Yes, for our younger readers Eastwoods scrapyard once dominated the Andersonstown Road at the corner of Kennedy Way.
Huge mountains of metal would form several peaks overlooking its imposing wall, cranes lifting and swinging the mangled mess from one mound to another. The Lucozade Factory back in 1979’ it has been replaced by the Kennedy Centre
It must have been the early nineties when Eastwoods gave way to the Westwood Centre. I never understood that: Eastwoods – Westwood.
But that wasn’t the first major change on that stretch of road.
Next to Eastwoods was the Lucozade Factory. A squat, low, brick building, it opened in the early 1950s, bottling the popular energy drink so familiar to hospital bedsides and shipping it around the North and beyond until it closed for the final time in 1980.
It sat idle for a while, before it was finally taken over by Curley’s supermarket, only later to be flattened to make way for the new Kennedy Centre. Within a couple of years that stretch of road from Kennedy Way to Milltown Cemetery changed completely. But it was not until the mid-noughties that the much-welcomed closure of Andytown Barracks completed the transformation. The Andersonstown Leisure Centre opened in 1979; its new incarnation opened to the public in 2020
And there have been other notable changes in the other direction too, leading up to Finaghy Road North. Many businesses have come and gone over the past 50 years since the Andersonstown News first hit the streets during what would become the worst year of the conflict.
But still the shopping district continues to rejuvenate and faces headlong the challenges that come our way; not least the last two years of Covid. Anyone travelling on this stretch of the road can’t help but notice the new Andersonstown Leisure Centre with its colourful flumes extending out of the modern facility before winding their way back in to a world of water. It’s hard to believe that when the centre first opened in 1979 it was considered state-of-the-art, with its distinctive design and façade.
There’s one piece of the jigsaw which is missing, however, from Andytown. The gaping hole on the front of the road that was once Casement Park.
It’s nearly ten years since a ball has been kicked or a sliotar pucked in the much-loved venue. With a judicial decision due by the end of next month on the GAA’s plans for a 34,500 capacity stadium we could soon have our very own field of dreams back in the heart of Andersonstown.
And there’ll be a big scrap for tickets when that happens.
Casement Park closed in 2013 and next month a judge is expected to make a decision on whether the new stadium (left) will be built
