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August 01, 2006

Five grounds on Glasgow shortlist

Posted by Editor on August 1, 2006 12:09 AM | 19 comments | Print | E-mail author

Falkirk Community Stadium is on the Warrior's shortlist
Glasgow Warriors could be forced to play outside the city in the season about to start, according to reports in today's press.

The Times claims that if Glasgow do have to go outside the city, the new stadium at Falkirk is the most favoured option.

Gordon McKie, the SRU chief executive, has revealed that five grounds are being examined to see if they could play host to the Warriors next season, but added that there are problems with all of them.

He refused to identify which grounds have reached the shortlist, but it is understood that they are the rugby club grounds at Anniesland, Burnbrae and Hughenden, the football ground at Firhill and the community stadium at Falkirk.

Forthbank and Broadwood stadiums have been mentioned in the past but they do not feature in the union's present planning.

The difficulty for McKie is that none of the rugby grounds have good enough facilities and going to any of them would involve extra costs for the cash-strapped union.

To become a season-long home, Burnbrae would require temporary floodlights and seating, as would Anniesland, to satisfy expected crowds of 3,000 to 4,000 and safety regulations, while Hughenden needs significant improvement work in its changing areas

Firhill is the best option inside the city in terms of facilities but there were problems when the pitch was cut up by rugby players the night before Partick Thistle, the owners, played there, and it was never popular with the Glasgow fans.

Falkirk's modern pitch is designed to take the pounding of a rugby game and still be in perfect condition for a football match — but it is 20 miles by road from the city's north-east boundary, and many Glasgow fans would be likely to be deterred by the journey.

"Obviously, we are a rugby business and it would be nice to play in a rugby stadium," said McKie in today's Scotsman, "but there are few that fulfil the criteria we want.

"Falkirk is being evaluated as it has a good pitch and floodlights. We've used it for Under-21 games and it is accessible. Clearly, that move (so far from Glasgow) would be emotive and our preference would be to stay in Glasgow. Sadly, not many locations in Glasgow can tick many boxes in the criteria we have to host professional rugby."

In the long term, he gave warning that the future of both Glasgow and the Borders is still being assessed on a season-by-season basis. While the strong view within the union is that there should be three professional teams, there are no guarantees about where they should be based.

"There is no five-year plan for either of them," McKie said in The Times. "We reassess where we are at the end of every season. We have shown in the sale of Edinburgh what can be achieved and ideally that will be the model for the other clubs as well, but things appear to have gone a bit quiet on that front."

Comments
Posted by Alan on August 1, 2006 01:03 AM | Reply to this comment

I think we can safely say that the Falkirk Stadium is the clear "no thank you Mr McKie" ..the others, we can put up with until we have our own ground on a long term basis, which (in my humble opinion) should be Scotstoun.

Posted by caroline on August 1, 2006 08:44 AM | Reply to this comment

Im not at all interested in falkirk. I, for one who like most of the general population work till 5 o'clock on a friday, and not in the city centre ,to get in to the town at rush hour and then get to falkirk on public transport for 7 / 7.so is a tall order. not to mention getting home late friday nights.

Posted by steven on August 1, 2006 09:31 AM | Reply to this comment

I agree with Caroline - its sometimes hard enough to get to the West End after work never mind Falkirk. And i dont have a car. So a move to Falkirk means I'll be supporting Glasgow by reading Saturday's sport pages. If the team move to Falkirk I reckon they might have found a new home but they'll need to start looking for a new fan base.

Posted by hugh on August 1, 2006 10:30 AM | Reply to this comment

Time is at a premium here if the Warriors move to Falkirk will they become the Glasgow Bairns if that happens and a clock falls on them you can at least say "time is on the wean"

Posted by Gordon on August 1, 2006 01:54 PM | Reply to this comment

Looks like we're literally being told to "get to Falkirk" this time...

Posted by stones on August 1, 2006 02:24 PM | Reply to this comment

Bit odd to consider Falkirk on the basis it's one of the ones that's big enough... but ignore the fact that you'd be surely hard-pushed to fill it with new supporters from the surrounding area and certainly couldn't rely on the increasingly p*d off regular weegies.

Posted by Big Blue on August 1, 2006 03:30 PM | Reply to this comment

On the other hand, we will be subsidised by the ratepayers of Stirlingshire.

Posted by Hugues on August 1, 2006 11:38 PM | Reply to this comment

So frustrating, a so big town like GLASGOW without a decent Rugby stadium...
Quite incredible from the French side.
If the games are played in Falkirk, what is the plan to attract crowds from the City?

Posted by Phall on August 2, 2006 12:18 PM | Reply to this comment

Crowds of 3,000- 4,000. Come on...

Posted by Forbes on August 2, 2006 04:33 PM | Reply to this comment

Glasgow must play in Glasgow full stop end of story. Falkirk is too ridiculous to contemplate! Furthermore we must stopping messing around with times and venues. Regular Friday nights so as to avoid further disruption to the clubs. All you have to do is go to Ravenhill any Friday home game for Ulster and see a near sell out every time. We are rapidly becoming a total joke and I for one am sick of it. The SRU have not got a clue and are only interested in the Edinburgh mafia. The Glasgow franchise must go to Mackay and Simmers or we are well and truly Friar Tucked!

Posted by Garyipa on August 4, 2006 01:41 PM | Reply to this comment

clearly thats why they franchised them

Posted by Forbes on August 2, 2006 04:40 PM | Reply to this comment

Another grouse: why do we have to have this Warriors bollocks? Where did all this silly naming start. Look at the Irish provinces of Leinster, Munster and Ulster - they seem to do pretty well without this nonsense. Total mince - let's ditch it. The name Glasgow is big enough all by itself.

Posted by Phall on August 4, 2006 12:30 PM | Reply to this comment

The Welsh sides all have tags added to their names, and Leinster actually use the tag Lions on frequent occassions. I really quite like it and it distinguishes Glasgow Rugby from the Glasgow Hawks and Glasgow Hutchesons Aloysians.
I'd be more upset about the abject performances last season than the name...

Posted by sandy on August 3, 2006 01:12 PM | Reply to this comment

I am with Forbes. Forget Falkirk or, personally, forget supporting Glasgow. Also dump the childish Warriors tag.
Firhill, though not great, should suffice until Scotstoun is finished.
Another angle! Could the SFA, Queen's Park FC and the city council not be persuaded to build a new, smaller (sponsored) stadium at Lesser Hampden to be shared between the aforesaid football team and our rugby team?

Posted by Big Blue on August 3, 2006 03:26 PM | Reply to this comment

I've been banging the drum for years now about Lesser. What a complete waste of a potentially fine arena. Too late now, I fear. Some of the money wasted on the main stadium could have been used to provide an excellent facility next door.

Posted by hugh on August 3, 2006 04:01 PM | Reply to this comment

Well Big Blue you must be a Spiders man--did you ever change in the old farm house that was the pavilion at Lesser Hampden

Posted by Big Blue on August 4, 2006 10:50 AM | Reply to this comment

No, otherwise I would be "Big Black and White"! Never changed in Clincart Farm. Was redevelopment of Lesser not part of the Grand Plan when the main stadium was done? Queen's still own Lesser, as far as I am aware.

Posted by hugh on August 6, 2006 06:04 PM | Reply to this comment

Did George Younger not see to that plan

Posted by sunday5 on August 9, 2006 01:46 PM | Reply to this comment

Falkirk?! Who thinks up this pish? Why would it benifit the Club and more importantly the Fans if the WARRIORS were to move to Falkirk? More to the point, do the powers at be think that we have limitless patiance? We were already down to about 1,000 supporters per game at the end of the last season, I can't see many traveling to Falkirk and really feeling that they are supporting their home side.
Couldn't we rough it out at Hughenden until Scotstoun is ready? It was a better venue than Firhill anyway.

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