It was an emotional day in Paisley on Saturday 3rd January, as the spiritual home of world soccer hosted its final ever showdown: St. Mirren against Motherwell. The Love Street turnstiles rolled for the final time, as 10,000 proud Buddies prepared to say their final farewells to what was, inevitably, the breeding ground of the majority of Scotland’s, if not the world’s, finest footballing offspring.
Over its 115 year history, time spent at Love Street was pivotal in the careers of some the our country’s greats: Frank McAvennie, Tony Fitzpatrick, Frank McGarvey, Billy Stark and Archie Gemmill to name but a few, with Sir Alex Ferguson obviously the most glowing reputation amongst the Saints managerial alumni. In 1983, Love Street welcomed Feyenoord in the UEFA Cup, where Johan Cruyff and Ruud Gullit were taught a thing-or-two about the game of football, albeit escaping with a 1-0 victory, before seeing the tie through with a 2-0 win in Holland.
It is the ground where the Saints whipped Celtic 6-3, coming from 2-0 down in 1958; became the Anglo Scottish Cup holders, a crown which the club still wears to this day, perhaps in some-part down to the axing of the competition, after defeating Bristol City 3-1 in 1980; thumped Slavia Prague 3-0 in the first-round of the UEFA Cup in 1985; and, a bit more recently, in what many have described as the game of the season, annihilated Rangers 1-0, thanks to a wonder-goal from young Buddie Stephen McGinn! In recent times, Saints lifted the First Division title at Love Street in both 2000 and 2006, and, back in 1987, returned from Hampden to Paisley with the Scottish Cup.
With such an incredible history, the final game at the old stadium was always going to be emotional. And so it was. Perhaps too emotional however, to produce the really good game of football befitting for the old bird’s last hoorah. It was obvious and unfortunate that the incredible pressure to win the final game, albeit unspoken from the loyal support, had got to the Saints players, and against a good Motherwell side, the prerogative shifted slightly as the game progressed, with most fans and players alike accepting the assumption that as long as we did not lose, then that would be an acceptable enough goodbye to Love Street. And so the match finished 0-0, with the relevance of the fixture bearing on a couple of referee Alan Muir’s decisions, Mr. McGhee and the ’Well support may rightly argue.
So the seats clapped back for the last time, as the Saints fans rose to applaud the result. We hadn’t lost the final game, after four-wins on the trot, against a good outfit in McGhee’s Motherwell, so we had done Love Street and the ghosts of 115 years proud!
I got a text: “How’s Love Street?”. A bit general, but I took a second to absorb the mood around the terracing, and the only word that kept springing to mind was eerie. It genuinely was very eerie; a deathly silence around the stands as the fire marshal’s prepared a fireworks display that was sure to rival New Year at Sydney Harbour Bridge. Without wanting to sound pretentious or overly-deep down the phone, I text back saying: “Yeah, its alright! Game wasn’t much, hopefully the fireworks will be better.”. They weren’t. Well, I say this, but fireworks are usually better when you can see them, which was unfortunately impossible under the corrugated iron roof of the main stand. For sound quality though, it was a sure 10/10!
In all honesty however, quite a large part of me felt very teary-eyed for some reason. I don’t cry easily, and I have only been braving Love Street regularly for the past four years, but the sense of the occasion was really starting to get to me. The still, solemn faces of the old who have seen the best of Love Street for sixty, seventy years easily, were now saying goodbye to the loyal friend who has never once let them down every second Saturday, as others close to them have moved on. The men half their age, who now bring their own children, looked down to the half-way line, remembering when they packed this stadium with their own fathers and enjoyed some incredible games of football. And then the younger ones like myself, who have never been told a thing, but know that the responsibility lies with us to continue the traditionally faithful support that follows St. Mirren. The club that our father’s, father’s father brought into our family, just by living in Paisley, is a torch that should be, nay needs to be carried on. Saints Chairman Stewart Gilmour used the match programme to recite an old saying that he described as “never so relevant than it is today” : ‘St. Mirren is Paisley and Paisley is St. Mirren’. The silence of ten-thousand memories come full-time brought fruition to the saying in a way no-one could ever describe.
The weekend will have past come the time you read this, but what an exciting Saturday its going to be for Paisley and the club itself especially, when the new St. Mirren Park opens its doors to a sell-out 8,000 Buddies against Kilmarnock on the last day of January. The atmosphere will be electric, and the whole town buzzing, as the fans quite aptly march together from Love Street to Greenhill Road, the site of the new ground in Ferguslie Park, in a display of incredible support, loyalty and re-birth. “We’ll go wherever Saint Mirren go, we are the North-bank agro!”
With tickets sold-out a fortnight in advance, it will be interesting to see how difficult it is to buy a ticket for the following week at home to struggling Falkirk. With Love Street averaging between 4,000 and 4,500 supporters each week, it would be fantastic to see the new dawn at Greenhill Road catalyse the sale of season tickets for the rest of this season and the next.
With a new start for a local club, the old traditions will stay the same, but with a relocation should hopefully spark a desire within locals to start following the local side - their side. I am a strong believer of supporting your local side, and feel that it is a practice that should be followed worldwide. For residents of Paisley, now is the prime-time to start following your local side, especially if it is a past-time you have considered for a while. Trust me, I am sure that you will not be alone amongst what will hopefully be, and I say this with fingers crossed, a growing St. Mirren support!
This is a fantastic time for St. Mirren to really grow as a club, but for those outside the Cart, where is the attraction to start following a local side?
Well, in a season where the Old Firm are criticized for the football they play on a near weekly basis, or, if you look at it in a different light, a season where the ten other SPL sides are playing a better class of football and closing the gap on the ‘weaker’ Old Firm, you will be granted a good quality of football and contest wherever you go. If the Saints, Hamilton, Falkirk, Motherwell or Kilmarnock - all from the west of Scotland - are your side, then you are offered a different serving of football pie each weekend this season: one week your pushing top six, then next you have got a six-point relegation decider! Each of these sides have run at least one set of the Old Firm close this season, and defeated the third-place contenders on several occasions: Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and Dundee United. There is nothing more satisfying than a hard-fought three-points!
In times when money is scarce yet ticket prices continue to soar, there is no better time to part with, on average, £13 of your loan for a student ticket for a St. Mirren, Hamilton, Falkirk, Motherwell or Kilmarnock fixture, against the £23.50 adult price you would have to pay if you went to see Rangers versus Dundee United or Kilmarnock over the next few weeks, or the jaw-dropping £24.50 for Celtic v St. Mirren on February 28th.
If you want to stay even truer to your roots, then head back home at the weekend to watch your beloved Elgin, Montrose, East Fife or even Annan Athletic! What’s the point I here you say? Well…
Once upon a time, in a land just off the M62, played a football club by the name of Hull City. In 2004, Hull gained promotion from the English Third Division (League Two), into the dizzy heights of League One.
The Coca-Cola League One acted as a conveyer belt for the club, taking them in from League Two and carrying them straight to the English Championship in a single season over 2004/05. Once in the Championship - England’s second top-tier of football, yet the fourth richest league in the world - it took the Tigers two years to find their feet, before hiring manager Phil Brown who led the side to the English Premiership, less than five years since they played part-time in the fourth tier of English football. Surely a one off in present day football?
Well, no actually! Head west from Glasgow to Prestwick Airport, and jump on board Ryanair heading to Frankfurt (Hahn - so not really Frankfurt). Then, motor south on the autobahn at 200kmp in your rented BMW to the village of Hoffenheim, population 3000. Park wherever you can, but try and avoid Saturday’s in the future: 1899 Hoffenheim, the area’s local football team, are in the process of relocating to a 30,000 (yes, thirty-thousand) seater stadium. Why? Because the team you have never heard of are top of the Bundesliga, after a true modern day footballing fairytale.
Bankrolled by a former youth player turned multi-millionaire, Dietmar Hopp amassed a fortune in the computer software market, co-founding the largest computing software company in Europe, SAP, before ploughing his cash into the club. Forget Chelsea; forget Manchester City; even try and remember Gretna to forget them again - Hopp had different ideas for his club, knowing that money could not, and perhaps should not, buy immediate success.
Instead of offering Kaka £500,000 a week to join an amateur village team playing in Germany’s eighth tier of Fußball, Hopp has carefully invested £120Million into the club since his bank-rolling began eighteen years ago - his aim for long-term success for 1899 Hoffenheim outlined by his first purchase for the club shortly after his takeover: state-of-the-art training facilities. The youth academies spawned from these training facilities are considered the key to Hoffenheim’s success, as the club has teams for all age groups, starting from under-12s.
It was this development and investment in youth that carried Hoffenheim through the lower leagues of German football to the third tier of soccer, which is when Hopp decided, in 2006, that he should invest in experienced players and an experienced manager with the aim of climbing through the third tier and Bundesliga 2 to reach the peak of German football, the Bundesliga, within three years.
The mix of youth and experience was, and still proves to be, a deadly combination for Hopp and Hoffenheim. This coalesce saw the club reach Bundesliga 2 in their first attempt under new manager Ralf Rangnick, and in this present day currently occupy top-spot with long-term German juggernauts Bayern Munich. So I pose the question: could this be the future East Fife?
Well, probably not. But, with both of these clubs, it just goes to show that anything is possible in football, no matter what side, however big or small they may be, can in fact achieve the ‘impossible’. In days where football clubs, especially in England, are no longer in the hands of the supporters but on the strings of puppeteer billionaires, the dreams and fairytales of smaller sides are as gripping and as unbelievable as ever! Who outside the big-two wouldn’t want to see St. Mirren, Hamilton, Ross County, East Fife or East Stirling beat the Old Firm, or go onto bring a national trophy home to the town? I for one would absolutely love it.
The new St. Mirren Park will no doubt create as many fantastic memories as Love Street did over its 115 years; how incredible to think that I will have been there where it all began. 115 years from now, my son’s, son’s, son might sit in that very stadium as the saints return by rocket-ship from the moon, where the Champions League Final was held, and think back down the line to the days when the stadium only held 8,000, in contrast to the 80,000 it will jam in then!
So now is the time! Screw the monotony of the Old Firm, and banish the thought of the quality of football in Scotland being poor. Get the cash out your wallet and fund your local side en route to whatever may come - you will get so much out of it! Plus, you never know, you may just enjoy it…
Over its 115 year history, time spent at Love Street was pivotal in the careers of some the our country’s greats: Frank McAvennie, Tony Fitzpatrick, Frank McGarvey, Billy Stark and Archie Gemmill to name but a few, with Sir Alex Ferguson obviously the most glowing reputation amongst the Saints managerial alumni. In 1983, Love Street welcomed Feyenoord in the UEFA Cup, where Johan Cruyff and Ruud Gullit were taught a thing-or-two about the game of football, albeit escaping with a 1-0 victory, before seeing the tie through with a 2-0 win in Holland.
It is the ground where the Saints whipped Celtic 6-3, coming from 2-0 down in 1958; became the Anglo Scottish Cup holders, a crown which the club still wears to this day, perhaps in some-part down to the axing of the competition, after defeating Bristol City 3-1 in 1980; thumped Slavia Prague 3-0 in the first-round of the UEFA Cup in 1985; and, a bit more recently, in what many have described as the game of the season, annihilated Rangers 1-0, thanks to a wonder-goal from young Buddie Stephen McGinn! In recent times, Saints lifted the First Division title at Love Street in both 2000 and 2006, and, back in 1987, returned from Hampden to Paisley with the Scottish Cup.
With such an incredible history, the final game at the old stadium was always going to be emotional. And so it was. Perhaps too emotional however, to produce the really good game of football befitting for the old bird’s last hoorah. It was obvious and unfortunate that the incredible pressure to win the final game, albeit unspoken from the loyal support, had got to the Saints players, and against a good Motherwell side, the prerogative shifted slightly as the game progressed, with most fans and players alike accepting the assumption that as long as we did not lose, then that would be an acceptable enough goodbye to Love Street. And so the match finished 0-0, with the relevance of the fixture bearing on a couple of referee Alan Muir’s decisions, Mr. McGhee and the ’Well support may rightly argue.
So the seats clapped back for the last time, as the Saints fans rose to applaud the result. We hadn’t lost the final game, after four-wins on the trot, against a good outfit in McGhee’s Motherwell, so we had done Love Street and the ghosts of 115 years proud!
I got a text: “How’s Love Street?”. A bit general, but I took a second to absorb the mood around the terracing, and the only word that kept springing to mind was eerie. It genuinely was very eerie; a deathly silence around the stands as the fire marshal’s prepared a fireworks display that was sure to rival New Year at Sydney Harbour Bridge. Without wanting to sound pretentious or overly-deep down the phone, I text back saying: “Yeah, its alright! Game wasn’t much, hopefully the fireworks will be better.”. They weren’t. Well, I say this, but fireworks are usually better when you can see them, which was unfortunately impossible under the corrugated iron roof of the main stand. For sound quality though, it was a sure 10/10!
In all honesty however, quite a large part of me felt very teary-eyed for some reason. I don’t cry easily, and I have only been braving Love Street regularly for the past four years, but the sense of the occasion was really starting to get to me. The still, solemn faces of the old who have seen the best of Love Street for sixty, seventy years easily, were now saying goodbye to the loyal friend who has never once let them down every second Saturday, as others close to them have moved on. The men half their age, who now bring their own children, looked down to the half-way line, remembering when they packed this stadium with their own fathers and enjoyed some incredible games of football. And then the younger ones like myself, who have never been told a thing, but know that the responsibility lies with us to continue the traditionally faithful support that follows St. Mirren. The club that our father’s, father’s father brought into our family, just by living in Paisley, is a torch that should be, nay needs to be carried on. Saints Chairman Stewart Gilmour used the match programme to recite an old saying that he described as “never so relevant than it is today” : ‘St. Mirren is Paisley and Paisley is St. Mirren’. The silence of ten-thousand memories come full-time brought fruition to the saying in a way no-one could ever describe.
The weekend will have past come the time you read this, but what an exciting Saturday its going to be for Paisley and the club itself especially, when the new St. Mirren Park opens its doors to a sell-out 8,000 Buddies against Kilmarnock on the last day of January. The atmosphere will be electric, and the whole town buzzing, as the fans quite aptly march together from Love Street to Greenhill Road, the site of the new ground in Ferguslie Park, in a display of incredible support, loyalty and re-birth. “We’ll go wherever Saint Mirren go, we are the North-bank agro!”
With tickets sold-out a fortnight in advance, it will be interesting to see how difficult it is to buy a ticket for the following week at home to struggling Falkirk. With Love Street averaging between 4,000 and 4,500 supporters each week, it would be fantastic to see the new dawn at Greenhill Road catalyse the sale of season tickets for the rest of this season and the next.
With a new start for a local club, the old traditions will stay the same, but with a relocation should hopefully spark a desire within locals to start following the local side - their side. I am a strong believer of supporting your local side, and feel that it is a practice that should be followed worldwide. For residents of Paisley, now is the prime-time to start following your local side, especially if it is a past-time you have considered for a while. Trust me, I am sure that you will not be alone amongst what will hopefully be, and I say this with fingers crossed, a growing St. Mirren support!
This is a fantastic time for St. Mirren to really grow as a club, but for those outside the Cart, where is the attraction to start following a local side?
Well, in a season where the Old Firm are criticized for the football they play on a near weekly basis, or, if you look at it in a different light, a season where the ten other SPL sides are playing a better class of football and closing the gap on the ‘weaker’ Old Firm, you will be granted a good quality of football and contest wherever you go. If the Saints, Hamilton, Falkirk, Motherwell or Kilmarnock - all from the west of Scotland - are your side, then you are offered a different serving of football pie each weekend this season: one week your pushing top six, then next you have got a six-point relegation decider! Each of these sides have run at least one set of the Old Firm close this season, and defeated the third-place contenders on several occasions: Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and Dundee United. There is nothing more satisfying than a hard-fought three-points!
In times when money is scarce yet ticket prices continue to soar, there is no better time to part with, on average, £13 of your loan for a student ticket for a St. Mirren, Hamilton, Falkirk, Motherwell or Kilmarnock fixture, against the £23.50 adult price you would have to pay if you went to see Rangers versus Dundee United or Kilmarnock over the next few weeks, or the jaw-dropping £24.50 for Celtic v St. Mirren on February 28th.
If you want to stay even truer to your roots, then head back home at the weekend to watch your beloved Elgin, Montrose, East Fife or even Annan Athletic! What’s the point I here you say? Well…
Once upon a time, in a land just off the M62, played a football club by the name of Hull City. In 2004, Hull gained promotion from the English Third Division (League Two), into the dizzy heights of League One.
The Coca-Cola League One acted as a conveyer belt for the club, taking them in from League Two and carrying them straight to the English Championship in a single season over 2004/05. Once in the Championship - England’s second top-tier of football, yet the fourth richest league in the world - it took the Tigers two years to find their feet, before hiring manager Phil Brown who led the side to the English Premiership, less than five years since they played part-time in the fourth tier of English football. Surely a one off in present day football?
Well, no actually! Head west from Glasgow to Prestwick Airport, and jump on board Ryanair heading to Frankfurt (Hahn - so not really Frankfurt). Then, motor south on the autobahn at 200kmp in your rented BMW to the village of Hoffenheim, population 3000. Park wherever you can, but try and avoid Saturday’s in the future: 1899 Hoffenheim, the area’s local football team, are in the process of relocating to a 30,000 (yes, thirty-thousand) seater stadium. Why? Because the team you have never heard of are top of the Bundesliga, after a true modern day footballing fairytale.
Bankrolled by a former youth player turned multi-millionaire, Dietmar Hopp amassed a fortune in the computer software market, co-founding the largest computing software company in Europe, SAP, before ploughing his cash into the club. Forget Chelsea; forget Manchester City; even try and remember Gretna to forget them again - Hopp had different ideas for his club, knowing that money could not, and perhaps should not, buy immediate success.
Instead of offering Kaka £500,000 a week to join an amateur village team playing in Germany’s eighth tier of Fußball, Hopp has carefully invested £120Million into the club since his bank-rolling began eighteen years ago - his aim for long-term success for 1899 Hoffenheim outlined by his first purchase for the club shortly after his takeover: state-of-the-art training facilities. The youth academies spawned from these training facilities are considered the key to Hoffenheim’s success, as the club has teams for all age groups, starting from under-12s.
It was this development and investment in youth that carried Hoffenheim through the lower leagues of German football to the third tier of soccer, which is when Hopp decided, in 2006, that he should invest in experienced players and an experienced manager with the aim of climbing through the third tier and Bundesliga 2 to reach the peak of German football, the Bundesliga, within three years.
The mix of youth and experience was, and still proves to be, a deadly combination for Hopp and Hoffenheim. This coalesce saw the club reach Bundesliga 2 in their first attempt under new manager Ralf Rangnick, and in this present day currently occupy top-spot with long-term German juggernauts Bayern Munich. So I pose the question: could this be the future East Fife?
Well, probably not. But, with both of these clubs, it just goes to show that anything is possible in football, no matter what side, however big or small they may be, can in fact achieve the ‘impossible’. In days where football clubs, especially in England, are no longer in the hands of the supporters but on the strings of puppeteer billionaires, the dreams and fairytales of smaller sides are as gripping and as unbelievable as ever! Who outside the big-two wouldn’t want to see St. Mirren, Hamilton, Ross County, East Fife or East Stirling beat the Old Firm, or go onto bring a national trophy home to the town? I for one would absolutely love it.
The new St. Mirren Park will no doubt create as many fantastic memories as Love Street did over its 115 years; how incredible to think that I will have been there where it all began. 115 years from now, my son’s, son’s, son might sit in that very stadium as the saints return by rocket-ship from the moon, where the Champions League Final was held, and think back down the line to the days when the stadium only held 8,000, in contrast to the 80,000 it will jam in then!
So now is the time! Screw the monotony of the Old Firm, and banish the thought of the quality of football in Scotland being poor. Get the cash out your wallet and fund your local side en route to whatever may come - you will get so much out of it! Plus, you never know, you may just enjoy it…
Published: January 2009, Strathclyde Telegraph
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