In May 2004 it was
announced that East Stirlingshire FC had agreed to sell its Firs Park ground to
Ogilvie Homes for a price believed to be in the region of £1.6 million. The
ground stands on a prime site close to Falkirk town centre. It is understood
that the deal is conditional on planning permission being granted for the
building of houses in an area which has been earmarked for leisure use.
Should a planning
application be successful, the club could quit the ground at the end of the
2004/05 season. Where it would play after that is unclear. At first it was
thought that the sale might go ahead earlier, in which case the intention was
that East Stirlingshire would have started the present season playing at
Grangemouth Stadium and then moved to share Stenhousemuir’s ground at
Ochilview as soon as an agreement with that club could be finalised. More
recently there has been talk of a possible ground share with Falkirk FC at their
new Falkirk Community Stadium at Westfield.
East Stirlingshire
fans opposed to the idea of Firs Park being sold without a suitable alternative
being provided have formed shiretrust, which was launched officially on 1st
September 2004. This initiative has already met with support from fans of other
clubs, including those of Shire’s traditional rivals Falkirk, a number of whom
attended the Trust’s launch. Falkirk’s programme for the Division 1 match
against Airdrie United on 28th August 2004 also carried an article analysing the
Firs Park crisis.
In a speech at
shiretrust’s inaugural meeting, Dennis Canavan MSP (Ind., Falkirk West), a
keen Falkirk supporter and formerly a player with Spartans FC, said that he
believed the Scottish Parliament should require clubs to be more accountable to
supporters, since the current model of clubs operating as businesses governed
exclusively by a group of directors is clearly not working. The previous month,
during an informal meeting with Shire supporters, Mr Canavan described the
proposed sale of Firs Park as “the worst kind of asset stripping”, and said
that he had already written to both the SFA and the SFL requesting that they
look into the way the club is being run.
What is particularly worrying about the East Stirlingshire
situation is the fact that if the sale of Firs Park is completed, the club’s
board of directors have shown no indication that they plan to invest any of the
proceeds in a replacement ground. It seems that the intention is simply to
distribute the proceeds to the club’s shareholders in the form of a dividend.
In other words, the Shire would become homeless: a club whose only significant
remaining asset would be its membership of the Scottish League. This in turn
could cause it to become easy prey for anyone seeking a “franchise” package
involving a takeover followed immediately by relocation. Something similar, of
course, has happened to the club before. In 1964 it was forced by its own
chairman (and against the wishes of Shire fans) to amalgamate with Clydebank
Juniors and relocate to the latter’s ground at Kilbowie Park, but the chances
are that this time there would be no repeat of the club’s quick re-emergence
in 1965 after the ES Clydebank fiasco. Shire supporters maintain that all the
talk of moves to Grangemouth and Stenhousemuir was no more than a smoke screen. They argue
that there is no business plan for the future of the club after the sale of the
ground. The current East Stirlingshire chairman, Alan Mackin, has been quoted
several times as saying that he is unwilling to help Falkirk FC by investing in
their Westfield Stadium. The conclusion, therefore, is that the historic East
Stirlingshire club, founded in 1881, would simply cease to exist, and
another part of Scotland’s sporting heritage would be lost to posterity.
Alan Mackin is no stranger to controversy, and there have
been supporters’ protests on a number of occasions in the recent past about
the way the club is being run. A large proportion of Mr Mackin’s shareholding has been distributed amongst his
family and friends in order to ensure the maximum number of votes at any General
Meeting. However, following the ES Clydebank episode, the Shire constitution was
redrafted so that nowadays a large block of shares held by a single individual no
longer carries the same weight as an equal number of shares held by many small
shareholders. This is one of the key factors which, so far, have prevented Mr
Mackin from getting his way. It must be emphasised that Shire fans and the
supporters’ trust are not opposed to the sale of Firs Park provided that the
proceeds are used to ensure the survival of the club by, for example, taking a
stake in the Westfield Stadium and ground sharing with Falkirk. They have no
wish whatsoever to stand in the way of progress, but East Stirlingshire’s
future must be safeguarded. The other key factor, following the disastrous results of the last
two seasons, is the surprise emergence of Littlewoods Pools Ltd as East
Stirlingshire’s sponsor this season. Paradoxically, the publicity that the
cruel jibe of “Britain’s worst senior football club” has generated has
helped to prevent Mr Mackin and his board from letting the club slide into the
oblivion which they seem so much to desire.
CJ – 12/12/2004
Many
thanks to John Watson of shiretrust for his very kind help with this article.
Anyone
wishing to join or requiring more information about shiretrust should contact
East Stirlingshire Supporters Society Limited
P.O. Box 21654
FALKIRK
FK2 7XN
The
shiretrust forum can be found at http://shiretrust.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=general
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