Background
The 1971 Ibrox disaster, in which 66 supporters were killed on an exit stairway with an old, unsafe design led to Rangers redeveloping their Ibrox Park over the next decade, replacing most of the terracing areas with seated grandstands, based on the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund. [1] It was the first major modernisation of a football stadium in Scotland for decades.
In 1986, Clyde became the first of several senior clubs to leave the stadium where they had played since the early years of the sport (1898 in their case); unusually in Scotland they did not own Shawfield Stadium, and the greyhound racing company which were the owners aimed to sell it for redevelopment (which never came to pass) and the football team was evicted. [2] It was the first in what would be a complicated and protracted series of relocations during the final years of the 20th and the outset of the 21st century. For Clyde, eight years of ground-sharing followed before their new home in Cumbernauld – ten miles from their old base in Rutherglen – was ready in 1994 (even then, it was still owned by the local authority rather than the club). [3]
By that time, the 1989 Hillsborough disaster had taken place, and its subsequent inquiry recommended all-seater stadia at the elite professional level, [4] something the Scottish Football League adopted as a rule, requiring almost all Scottish clubs to either upgrade their ageing stadia or construct new ones to comply with the new legislation (for example, both Easter Road and Tynecastle were entirely rebuilt in stages over the next 20 or so years, [5] with Hearts playing a small number of home matches at the neighbouring Murrayfield rugby stadium in the final phase of work). [6] Celtic spent one season – 1994–95 – away from home at Hampden Park [7] (between the national stadium's own periods of extensive renovation that required several national cup finals and Scotland fixtures to be played at the other large Glasgow venues) [8] which was familiar to many of the players from internationals and cup fixtures; indeed, the last match of their spell at Hampden before returning to a half-completed Celtic Park was the 1995 Scottish Cup Final, which they won. The sums spent by Celtic and others to modernise their stadia in that era was in contrast to Rangers who had carried out their major upgrades some years earlier, and this extra revenue was reflected in the Gers' dominance on the field in those years. [1]
Several middle-order teams such as Partick Thistle endured financial hardship modernising their ground, [9] exacerbated by a requirement of the new Scottish Premier League in 1998 (although it was actually set in place in 1994 with clubs given the intervening years to comply) [10] stipulating that a ground had to have 10,000 seats, far more than the average attendance of all but a handful of its members. [11]
A worse fate befell Airdrieonians who vacated their traditional Broomfield Park in 1994, had to wait four years for their new SPL-compliant Excelsior Stadium to be finished, then were out of business by 2002, unable to repay the cost of its construction. In their final match away to Ayr United, some Airdrie supporters staged a destructive pitch invasion at Somerset Park – the Ayr chairman happened to own the construction company which built Excelsior Stadium and was thus a major creditor of Airdrieonians; [12] however his club had not been burdened with the costly disruption of stadium rebuilding, [13] and nor would any major changes be seen at Somerset Park in the subsequent fifteen years. [14] [15] A team continues to play in Airdrie, but at the time of its formation, Airdrie United was technically a rebranding of Clydebank, [16] another club which had vacated its old home and spent six seasons playing in Dumbarton and Greenock, with its attendance numbers dwindling all the while. [17] The Bankies fans formed a phoenix club of the same name to compete in the Junior leagues. [18]
Having been landlords to Clyde in the 1980s, Hamilton Academical almost went the way of Airdrieonians when their new stadium took seven years to materialise; it took the intervention of some Glasgow investors (who had previously been at the helm of Clyde) [19] to stabilise the Accies financially, and their youth-focused business model saw the club reach the top tier within a decade. [20]
Falkirk were denied promotion in 2000 (Aberdeen being spared possible relegation in a play-off) [21] and 2003 (Motherwell reprieved) [22] due to the condition of Brockville Park before they sold the town centre site for the construction of a supermarket (as Airdrie and Hamilton had done), sharing with Stenhousemuir for one year while their new stadium on the edge of town was being built. The Bairns were angered when Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who already had a new stadium but not of sufficient size, were allowed to join the SPL for the 2004–05 campaign on a ground-sharing agreement with Aberdeen [23] (100 miles away from their home city), albeit only for six months during expansion work, when Falkirk had been denied such an arrangement with Clyde or Airdrie United the year before. [24] This developments caused further annoyance for Partick Thistle as they were the club relegated from the top division when Inverness made their Aberdeen plan. [11] That summer, a reduction in the required seating capacity from 10,000 to 6,000 came into effect, [25] which benefitted clubs such Inverness, [26] Falkirk (who gained promotion in the first season in their new stadium) and later Hamilton, as smaller new venues were now acceptable without even having all four sides built up (to reach the lower threshold in 2008, Hamilton erected a 'temporary' stand for 700 which was still in place a decade later).
Gretna also shared with Motherwell, a distance of 100 miles again, during their single campaign in the SPL in 2007–08; the league indicated that such plans would not be considered again due to the very poor condition of the Fir Park pitch as a result of so many matches being played on it. [27]
At either end of this unsettled period, St Johnstone (in 1989) and St Mirren (2009) both relocated to new grounds with much less upheaval than others mentioned above, due to the fact that the replacements were being constructed before the originals were vacated. This was also true further down the leagues for East Fife (1998) and Dumbarton (2000); however when East Stirlingshire vacated Firs Park in 2008, an intended tenancy of five years at nearby Stenhousemuir became ten years, during which time the club lost their league place, being relegated to the recently introduced Lowland Football League in 2016. In 2018, Shire moved in with Falkirk. [28]
Ayr United's impressive form at the outset of the 2018–19 Scottish Championship season led observers to examine the latest SPFL entry requirements due to the possibility of the club achieving promotion while still based at the unmodernised Somerset Park (all other promoted teams' stadia since the advent of the new league body in 2013 had met the previous SPL seating threshold of 6000, therefore little attention was paid to the matter). It was confirmed that the SPFL statutes only required grounds to have 'bronze standard' facilities (500 covered places), meaning Somerset Park would be accepted as a Premiership venue with minimal improvements. [15] [29] Arbroath, with their similarly unmodernised Gayfield Park, came close to promotion in 2022, [30] while Queen's Park, long associated with playing in a near-empty Hampden, challenged for a Premiership place a year later while groundsharing at Stenhousemuir's Ochilview Park. [31]
