Love Street (stadium)

55°51′11″N 4°25′43″W

St. Mirren Park

Love Street
Location	Paisley, Scotland
Owner	St. Mirren
Capacity	10,800
Field size	110 x 70 yards
Surface	Grass
Opened	1894
Tenants
St.Mirren

St. Mirren Park, more commonly known as Love Street, is a football stadium located on Love Street in Paisley, Scotland.

The home ground of St. Mirren F.C., the stadium has an all seated capacity of 10,800.

The club had previously played at
Shortroods Estate [1877-78],
Abingdon Park [1878-1879],
Thistle Park, Greenhill Road [1879-1882], and
Westmarch Estate, Greenhill Road [1882-1894].

The Grounds on Love Street were registered as 'Fullerton Park' for St Mirren's first season there as they were being rented from a Mr Fullerton.

Paisley in the 1890s

When St Mirren began to play its sport 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 10-year lease but, by the time it had arrived at Love Street, St Mirren was only 17 years old and playing on its 5th rented ground.

It was also the case that towns were a long way distant from developing into what we know today. So, the Shortroods Estate cricket ground where St Mirren players kicked their first ball in 1877 was very much on the outside edge of Paisley. Springbank Road (which runs along the northern boundary of the Love Street Grounds and lies between it and the site of what was the old Shortroods Estate) had tenement housing on the town-side but beyond was privately-owned land extending into open countryside.

The same could be said of Greenhill Road where Saints moved in 1879, and especially the Westmarch Estate with its orchards where the Club played for 12 years. The town Gasometer sat at the foot of Well Street but there would be no Ferguslie Park Housing Estate for another 50 years.

In the centre of Paisley, Coats’ Memorial Church and Dunn Square were both under construction in 1894, the year St Mirren flitted to Love Street. the Town Hall had been standing for only 10 years; the Museum for 20.

As Saints prepared for its move to a new venue the Paisley Daily Express of the time wrote … “The St Mirren have been for so long associated with Westmarch ground that it is difficult to conceive of them as the inhabitants of new quarters.”

St Mirren's Move to Love Street

It can’t be said that St Mirren wanted to move to Love Street because it didn’t. At Westmarch, the Club had enough land for 2 pitches so that both XIs could play at he same time. A tidy clubhouse had been built and a small grandstand set against the railway embankment across the Greenhill Road from Paisley St James railway station.

However, the landlord was receiving regular complaints from the railway company and decided he had to act. Now, we don’t know whether the ball was forever hitting passing trains or if spectators were standing on top of the embankment for a better view.

The upshot was that St Mirren was hit with a 100% rent increase. The landlord refused to negotiate and the Club decided it had no option but to find new accommodation at very short notice.

What it found was a former brickworks at the foot of Love Street which could be rented for an initial 10 years on reasonable terms. It was a much smaller site than Westmarch, just wide enough to lay a pitch and have some spare ground behind the goals, poorly drained and without grass. However, it would give St Mirren the advantage of being nearer to the town centre than any of Paisley’s other football clubs.

Another advantage … the site was already well know to the townsfolk as an entertainment venue, as it was where travelling circuses set up their big-top.

Securing Ownership of the Love Street Site

The first home game on Love Street was against Celtic on 8 September 1894. Saints lost 3-0 but that doesn’t seem quite so bad when you realise that, with work on preparing the new ground lasting until the day before the match, the team had done no training all closed season!

2 more home games followed in quick succession and the team did much better; winning 5-1 and 4-3. In fact, the side won 8 of its 11 home matches at its new home in that first season.

That was a good start … but St Mirren was very nearly forced to move away from Love Street, much as it had been from Westmarch, shortly after the original 10-year lease.

When the Club approached the landowner with an offer to buy the site he tried to take advantage of the situation. He set a high price and an ultimatum – either buy or face a hefty increase in rent.

So, once again the Club looked for alternatives, and began to negotiate with the owners of the Shortroods Estate where St Mirren had played for its first season. An agreement might well have been reached but there was a final twist. Realising that his plan was about to backfire the Love Street landlord reduced his asking price and Saints stayed at Love Street.

Over the course of the next 15 years the Club’s aim was to buy the land that bordered its site on 2 sides – towards the town and round onto Greenock Road. Actually, a deal was almost done within months of buying the original site but the price was hiked suddenly and dramatically after the Town announced it was going to build Albion Street on the south edge of the land to link Love Street with the Greenock Road.

It was not until 1920 that the land was finally secured and St Mirren owned pretty much the site that it occupies today.

Development of the Greater Love Street Grounds

With a large site now owned, and the playing pitch about to be moved 40 yards towards the town, the Club had plans for a 60,000 capacity ground in the Glasgow tradition … a large oval sweep of earth embankments surrounding a 440 yard running track on 3 sides, with the 4th side taken up by a grandstand set up above a terraced enclosure.

However, as the public subscription to build a town centre war memorial around the same time pulled in thousands more pounds than needed, St Mirren’s share issues fell short of expectation. Even worse for the Club came as the Great Depression in the United Kingdom tightened its grip, causing rocketing prices and a scarcity of materials.

It became a case of cutting back and accepting the cheapest tender for every aspect of the work. The part of the project to suffer most was the grandstand as the final price of the new grounds rose from April’s estimate of £17,500, for the full plans, to around £30,000 for the scaled-down version that was completed 6 months later.

After 1921 there was no major change to the Grounds until the late 1950s when the north bank was covered and floodlights installed. 20 years later the current 90-foot tall floodlight pylons went up and plans began to appear for redeveloping St Mirren Park as an all-seater stadium. There was talk of incorporating airport car-parking, or a hotel, or commercial office space.

In the summer of 1979, the Love Street End terracing was knocked down and rebuilt 10 yards from the goal. There was more talk of covering the new family enclosure at Cairter’s Corner and installing a stadium clock but ideas flew back-and-forth, including one to re-locate in Renfrew District Council’s proposed £200 million National Stadium planned for a site across the railway line from Greenhill Road.

With the SFA preferring to redevelop Hampden Park, St Mirren remained on Love Street and the North Bank terracing was seated in 1991. Four years later, after the owner of a large building company had joined the Club Board, the Caledonia Stand was built in a deal that sold some of the Club’s land for housebuilding. There were also plans to have a similar stand built at the Love Street End but the bottom fell out of the construction industry and there was the near sale of St Mirren in 1998 as the Club came close to extinction.

Finally, in the Millennium season, there was the rush to seat and cover the Love Street End terracing to meet SPL requirements as St Mirren headed for promotion.

The Stands

The main stand is situated on the southern [town] side of the stadium, but does not run the entire length of the pitch. The biggest stand is the West [Caledonia Street] Stand, sponsored by local building firm Laidlaw Scott, which houses away fans. The 'North Bank' is where the loudest, most 'hard-core' home fans usually are, and songs are usually started here. This stand is sponsored by former shirt-sponsors LDV [Leyland DAF Vans]. The east, or Reid Kerr College stand, is on the Love Street side of the stadium and is the most recently built stand.

The Main Stand

The main stand at Love Street is one of the features that makes the ground instantly recognisable, but the Club’s plans had been for something altogether more grand.

The original Love Street stand, built when St Mirren moved to the site in 1894, stretched the full length of the pitch with 5 rows of seats and a total capacity of 1000. Long before the grounds were enlarged there had been thoughts of rebuilding the grandstand. On a couple of occasions plans were even drawn up; but the timing was never quite right.

The Club’s vision for the new Greater Love Street Grounds in 1921 included a 4-and-a-half-thousand-seater grandstand stretching 100 yards and set above an enclosure for 3000 spectators. Unfortunately, before building began, the Great Depression in the United Kingdom tightened its grip and costs doubled in the space of 6 months.

A meeting of the shareholders decided that the size of the stand should be more than halved to keep costs manageable. In addition, the steel framework was to be inexpensively clad in corrugated sheeting.

In the same year Dundee FC decided to continue with its plans to build a full-length stand although, like St Mirren, clad it in cost-saving corrugated sheeting. Dundee suffered intense financial hardship in the years that followed and went out of business for the duration of WW2.

Just 6 years after St Mirren and Dundee build their cut-price stands, the economic situation had improved sufficiently to allow 3 Glasgow clubs to build substantial brick grandstands; Partick Thistle, Celtic and Rangers. This proved to have been a small window of opportunity as the Great Depression of the 1930s was soon to follow.

It was the St Mirren Directors’ stated intention to eventually complete the original plans for a full-length grandstand on Love Street in stages as funds permitted. Sadly, that was never possible.

Floodlights

Installing floodlights at football grounds became widespread during the 1950s and St Mirren was soon playing in floodlit friendlies at other grounds. However, the Club had a very unique problem when it came to installing lights at Love Street.

The ground was on the direct approach path to the airport which, at that time, was in Renfrew. This meant that as well involving Paisley Town Council, Saints’ plans also had to satisfy 3 Government departments; the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Air Ministry and The Admiralty.

It was a slow process and there is the sense in reports of the time that the Directors decided to jump the gun a little by installing a system and using it for training.

There were roof-line lights set all the way along the newly built North Bank cover and the grandstand opposite. But, because the stand was considerably shorter than full-length there also had to be 2 pylons built to light the corners of the pitch on the stand side; and these couldn’t be very tall because of the flight-path. So these ended up as 2, strangely squat-looking, 40-foot pylons with 4 rows of lights. They weren’t even as tall as the stand roof!

Nonetheless, there were complaints from pilots that the pylon to the right of the stand was confusing their approach and a black-out order was imposed while aviation charts had this new landmark added. It then took a further 3 months for the Air Ministry to run tests and finally pass the system fit for use. The first match under the lights was on Friday 13 February against Peebles Rovers in the 1959 Scottish FA Cup, a match St Mirren won 10-0.

In 1966 the airport was moved to its current site in Abbotsinch, Paisley, becoming known as Glasgow International Airport. Almost immediately the Club was being asked by the media when there would be “proper” floodlights put-up, as the system really wasn’t very good. The Club’s finances at the time were extremely tight, with only 2 full-time employees. There was no possibility that money could be spent on improving the floodlights.

It wasn’t until 1978, with a new set of Directors at the helm and a Development Fund put in motion that the present-day pylons were erected. Finally there was enough light for colour television broadcasts and European football!

Under-soil heating

One of the criteria for admittance to the Scottish Premier League is that clubs' grounds are equipped with under-soil heating. Having gained promotion from the Scottish first division at the end of the 2005-2006 season, St. Mirren found itself in a quandary; Love Street did not have under-soil heating. As the Club was planning to move to a new site shortly, it was faced with installing an expensive heating system that might only be used for one season, a financial burden the Club would struggle to meet. The Directors considered requesting a period of grace from the SPL, but in the end decided to go ahead with installing the system.

Future developments

St. Mirren continue to push forward with plans to move to a new purpose built stadium at a site a half-mile away, along Murray Street, and on Greenhill Road in Paisley's Ferguslie Park. The new stadium is literally "across the road" from St Mirren's previous home of 12 years, Westmarch. In fact, the Westmarch land is now also owned by the Club as part of the deal and there are as yet unspecified plans to develop it.
Both the old and new Grounds are visible from a position half-way along Murray Street.
To enable the move to go ahead, the Club reached an agreement with Renfrewshire Council (later rubber-stamped by the Scottish Executive) to allow them to sell the Love Street site to a supermarket chain, rather than a housing developer, as this would generate more capital, which in turn would pay for the construction of a new stadium, and help alleviate some of the Club's debt.
In April 2007 St Mirren struck a deal with the supermarket chain Tesco, who will build a supermarket on the current site of the stadium once the club leaves for their new stadium. Work on the new ground started on 9 January 2008 and is expected to be completed for the club to move into in early 2009.
The new stadium will have less capacity than Love Street, somewhere around 8,000 all-seated.

Attendance Records

St Mirren played in 5 Scottish FA Cup semi-finals at home on the original Love Street Grounds. Crowds regularly reached 10,000 and peaked at 16,000 for the 1906 semi-final clash with Third Lanark.

The Directors had plans for a 60,000 capacity at the enlarged Grounds. Although this figure had to be reviewed in the cost-cutting reductions, a visit of Rangers in the 1924 Scottish Cup took the ground attendance record above 40,000 for the first time.

12 months later, Celtic was drawn to visit Love Street in the ‘Scottish’ and the attendance record rose to 47,428.

This figure reigned for more than 20 years until the post-War boom in attendances saw it broken. On 20 August 1949 Celtic visited Paisley to play a Scottish League Cup sectional tie and 47,438 spectators paid to watch in the sunshine. This figure beat the previous record set against Celtic in 1925 by a mere 10 bodies.

It should not be forgotten that these figures only include ‘counted’ customers. Lots of folk climbed the fence or squeezed thru a hole somewhere or even perhaps jumped the turnstile as the gateman pocketed a shilling. Old attendance figures are notoriously inaccurate.

In November 1968, for example, there was a recorded 43,600 for a league match with Rangers and those in attendance would contest that the ground was absolutely jam-packed.

Once the Love Street End had been squared off, the capacity fell and the biggest crowd was undoubtedly for Celtic’s visit in the 1980 Cup replay. 27,166 squeezed inside, leaving huge queues on Love Street locked out.

The final all-seated capacity was 10,800 and, perhaps surprisingly, the closest the Ground came to be filled was not against either of the big Glasgow clubs. It was the post-split Scottish Premier League game against Dunfermline Athletic in April 2007 that filled most seats … 10,251 to be exact.

Other Uses of the Love Street Grounds

Womens’ football might be thought of as a relatively new innovation but St Mirren hosted a ladies’ match on Love Street as far back as 1895.

The Love Street Grounds have been a regular venue for schoolboy internationals, Scottish Junior Cup semi-finals, and Scotland Under-21 internationals. Way back in 1904 the Scottish Football League played the Irish League on the original site in front of 10,000 fans. Then, in 1970, St Mirren Park was a venue when Scotland hosted the UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship.

However, the Grounds’ biggest honour was undoubtedly in 1923 when 25,000 watched the Scotland national football team play Wales in the British Home International Championship. The disappointment that day was that no St Mirren player was selected despite one being thought good enough to face England a month later at Hampden Park.

St Mirren was a Football & Athletic Club until 1905 and annual sports with running and cycling events would have been a feature of the summer months during football’s closed season. It is known that there was a Scottish Inter-Region rugby union match played on the Grounds in 1897 and at least one dog handicap race run around the track in the early years of the 20th Century.

St Mirren did try to introduce greyhound racing on a regular basis in the early 1930s, and spent money on upgrading the track. However, only 3 weeks after the first race the SFA declared a ban on greyhound racing at football grounds and the Club lost money on the venture. When the ban was lifted, and St Mirren was approached to resume racing, the Club politely declined.

In 1938, the Grounds were pushed into the spotlight when a World Title Fight was scheduled involving Scotland’s first-ever world champion boxer Benny Lynch. Again money was spent with an anticipated pay-back from a 30,000 crowd. The event turned sour when Lynch was stripped of his title in the days before the fight for failing by a large margin to make the weight. It went ahead as a non-title bout but Lynch’s fans felt badly let down and the turnout was poor.

The non-football event that will be remembered by most would be when the Paisley Tigers team raced in the British National Speedway League at Love Street for 2 seasons in the mid-1970s. These nights were well attended and it was a disappointment to many when the team folded.

One final thing … did you know that intense county rivals Greenock Morton played its home games at the Love Street Grounds for part of 1949?! The deal was that St Mirren got to keep the stand and enclosure takings from the games. There is no truth in the rumour that Morton’s fans preferred to stand out in the rain than pay Saints for the shelter and comfort of the stand!

Representative Matches at St Mirren Park

Full International
British International Championship
17th March, 1923 - Scotland 2, Wales 0 - Attendance: 25,000

Inter-League International
7 February, 1904 - Scottish League 3, Irish League 1 - Attendance: 10,000

Under-21 Internationals
28 April, 1972 - Scotland 0, Northern Ireland 1.
18 November, 1998 - Scotland 2, Belgium 2 - Attendance: 5,087
5 October, 1999 - Scotland 2, Bosnia Herzegovina 0 - Attendance: 1,518.
6 September, 2002 - Scotland 1, Northern Ireland 1 - Attendance: 2,351

UEFA U-18 Youth Championships 1970
18 May, 1970 - Bulgaria 3, Sweden 0

Amateur International
29 February, 1964 - Scotland 1, Wales 0.

Womens’ European Championship
26 November, 1995 - Scotland 0, Belgium 3

Womens’ International
6 May, 1990 - Scotland 0, England 4

B&Q Challenge Cup Final
13 December, 1992 - Hamilton Academical 3, Greenock Morton 2

Scottish Junior FA Cup Semi-Finals
15 April, 1996 - Pollok Juniors v Tayport
30 April, 1999 - Arthurlie v Kilwinning Rangers
5 May, 2000 - Johnstone Burgh v Shotts Bob Accord
6 April, 2001 - Renfrew Juniors v Auchinleck Talbot
12 April, 2005 - Renfrew Juniors v Tayport

Schoolboy Internationals
Under-16
1951 Scotland 5 – 2 N Ireland
1963 Scotland 1 – 0 N Ireland
1973 Scotland 2 – 1 N Ireland
1984 Scotland 0 – 1 England
1988 Scotland 1 – 1 France
1999 Scotland 1 – 0 Austria
2001 Scotland 4 – 0 Switzerland
Under-17
1992 Scotland 3 – 1 Switzerland
Under-18
1978 Scotland 3 – 0 Wales
1981 Scotland 2 – 1 England
2003 Scotland 2 – 4 Republic of Ireland

References

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