IT is the ground where Alex Ferguson pinned his first ever team sheet to a wall and the place most teams have come to adore visiting, somewhat regrettably for the home side.
Farewell, then, to Firs Park, just the latest Scottish ground to succumb to the march of progress, with today's Third Division match between East Stirlingshire and Montrose likely to be the last senior game to sweep across its lovingly maintained –
if a half-metre too short – pitch.
It means the town of Falkirk has lost two classic football stadiums in the space of five years, something some might attribute to carelessness and others to simply the cost of moving on. Brockville, the ramshackle but cherished home of Falkirk FC, was flattened to make way for a supermarket in 2003 and now Firs Park is set to join the growing list of grounds to have been wiped from Scottish football's face, destined to be recalled only by a street name in an anonymous new-build housing estate.
Muirton Park, Broomfield, Douglas Park, Bayview, Annfield and Boghead have all been bulldozed in the last two decades, with Love Street, home to St Mirren, also due a visit from the wrecking ball. Just what is being lost was highlighted earlier this year when Cine film footage shot by William Gibson – featuring 36 Scottish grounds in the 1980-81 season – was downloaded on to a website. It is a fascinating, often haunting, reminder of how it used to be in the pre-identikit stand era, and essential viewing for anyone who feels the experience of visiting a football ground is inseparable from the game itself.
Firs Park, farewell.
Firs Park, where East Stirlingshire have played since 1921, was included in Gibson's travels with a Cine camera, and is revealed to be a well-maintained ground. Indeed, the stadium had just hosted its biggest crowd of modern times, when Dundee sealed promotion to the Premier Division with a 1-0 win in front of 5,762 fans in May 1981. Unfortunately for East Stirlingshire fans the sight of cavorting visiting supporters has been an all too regular occurrence, most recently when East Fife came to town in March and sealed a first title win in 60 years.
A visit to Firs Park yesterday helped re-establish a love for the place, although more regular attendees are better placed to chart the obvious decline since its heyday. "I think the heart of the ground was ripped out a few years ago when they decided to erect the 'Berlin wall' behind one of the goals," said Tadek Kopszwa, of the club's supporters' trust. "It lost whatever charm it had and has generally deteriorated from there. It lost its magic for me at that point of time, but I still don't think there's any need to leave."
Simon Inglis, author of the renowned book The Football Grounds of Great Britain, was enchanted by Firs Park when he dropped by, and noted a "sense of order" about the place. But he did also describe Firs Park as "an anachronism which no amount of emotion can deny". And this was 20 years ago.
Following in Inglis' footsteps yesterday, an obligatory abandoned shopping trolley is sighted outside the grey door which acts as an inauspicious entry point. Clad in blue boiler suits out on the pitch are groundsmen Jimmy Wilson and Robert Jack. Proof of how everyone here mucks in for the benefit of the club is Jack's former life – as club chairman. Now, rather than seeking to keep all the balls in the air at the same time, he is simply happy to retrieve them. "The goal is right in front of us, and the balls are all in that jungle over there – it's no wonder we are where we are," he says, before heading off to locate the landing places of those wayward efforts launched in East Stirlingshire's last home game, a 0-0 draw with Elgin City.
Ah, the football. This had to be addressed at some time, and today sees Jim McInally's side attempting to avoid finishing bottom of the Third Division for a fifth year running. A draw against Montrose would be enough, but only if Forfar lose at home to Dumbarton. Les Thomson, the chief executive, says the crowd figure today is "an irrelevance", but while the current 800 capacity-limit isn't likely to be tested a double print-run of 250 programmes was delivered to the club yesterday.
Firs Park – for players and fans alike – has always promised a belter of an away day. Perhaps it's the location, where an oasis of green is hemmed in by the gable ends of terraced houses and the more recent addition of a Land of Leather furniture store. It might be Tannoy man Les Mitchell, whose eclectic mix of pre-match and half-time tunes has entertained, educated and, he accepts, probably at times infuriated the select band who have chosen to spend their Saturdays at a ground where the speakers were once memorably described – in the Scottish football fanzine the Absolute Game – as "swinging from their leads like a medieval peasant newly hanged for treason". Today he is threatening to play Good-bye-ee by the Humblebums as his last record at Firs Park before he – and the club – decamp to Ochilview, where East Stirlingshire will share Stenhousemuir's synthetic pitch.
The whys and wherefores in relation to the move have been debated to the dust Firs Park will soon be reduced to, subject to planning permission being gained. Eight years ago The Scotsman ran a series on lower division football entitled Dancing In The Streets, and even then, when it came to covering East Stirling, the issue of leaving Firs Park was hot on the agenda. So, too, was Alan Mackin, the then chairman now set to cash in on the deal to sell the ground to Ogilvie Homes. The current owner of the club is Spencer Fearn, a Yorkshire-based businessman in his early thirties. He has promised a new stadium, but where it will be, and the name of the team which plays in it, remain in question.
"The nostalgic thing is all very well," says Thomson. "Football's changed and it's not always football's fault. The town, the surroundings, even the roads have all changed. The club was once very much a community club, but the community has moved on. We have a retail park right at our back door. These things haven't helped."
Thomson is right to censure those who bend his ear for tearing the club from its moorings, and yet haven't darkened the ground's doorway in years. But who can deny anyone a tear or two when the Humblebums give Firs Park an appropriately eccentric send-off today?
The full article contains 1135 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
