|
St. Mirren Park, more commonly known as Love Street, was a football stadium located on Love Street in Paisley, Scotland. At one time the stadium was capable of accommodating almost 50,000 spectators, however in its final years it had an all-seated capacity of 10,800. Until its closure in 2009, it was the home ground of St. Mirren F.C.. The football grounds on Love Street were registered as Fullerton Park for St. Mirren's first season there as they were originally rented from a Mr Fullerton. The ground's record attendance was 47,438 for a match against Celtic in 1949. St. Mirren completed construction of their new St. Mirren Park in December 2008. St. Mirren played their last game at Love Street, against Motherwell, on 3 January 2009. ==Early years at Love Street== When St. Mirren began to play on Love Street in the mid-1890s football clubs were still very much in their infancy and moved from ground to ground renting from local landowners. The best deal available was commonly a ten-year lease and by the time St. Mirren arrived at Love Street, the club was only 17 years old and playing on its fifth rented ground. They had previously played on four sites in the north of Paisley; Shortroods Estate (1877 to 1878), Abingdon Park (1878 to 1879), Thistle Park, Greenhill Road (1879 to 1882), and Westmarch Estate, Greenhill Road (1882 to 1894).〔 Paisley clubs Abercorn, who played at Underwood Park, and St. Mirren joined the Scottish Football League when it started in 1890–91.〔 Following twelve years playing at Westmarch, St. Mirren moved in 1894 in response to a 100% rent increase by the landlord who appeared to have lost interest in hosting football on his land. The club found a former brickworks at the foot of Love Street which could be rented for an initial ten years on reasonable terms. The land at Westmarch had been laid out with two pitches, a grandstand and pavilion; the Love Street site was substantially smaller, barely wide enough to lay an football pitch with some spare ground behind the goals; it was poorly drained and without grass. However, it would give St. Mirren the significant advantage of being nearer to Paisley town centre than any of the other football clubs in the town. Furthermore, the site was already well known to the townsfolk as an entertainment venue, as it was where travelling circuses set up their Big Top. The original Love Street site housed the re-built club pavilion behind the Love Street end goal, and a new grandstand, squeezed along the full length of the pitch with five rows of seats and a total capacity of 1,000. St. Mirren played their first home game at Love Street, a 3–0 defeat to Celtic, on 8 September 1894. Shortly after the original ten-year lease ran out, the club was almost forced to move away from Love Street, much as it had already been from Westmarch. With the club approaching Mr Fullerton with an offer to buy the site, the landowner tried to take advantage of the situation by setting a lofty price, together with an ultimatum to either buy or face a hefty increase in rent. The club hastily looked for alternatives, and began negotiations with the owners of the Shortroods Estate where St. Mirren had played for its first season. However, with the prospect of losing out altogether, Mr Fullerton backed down, reducing his asking price to £3,900 and thus Saints purchased and stayed at Love Street.〔 Over the course of the next fifteen years the club’s aim was to expand the site by buying the land that bordered on two sides – towards the town and round onto Greenock Road. However, it was not until 1920 that the land was finally secured and St. Mirren owned pretty much the site that it occupied through to its closure. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Love Street (stadium)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|