Meade glad to celebrate 90 years of Cliftonhill, but with an eye to future

Published on Friday 4 December 2009 23:12

THE grand old lady of Coatbridge, Albion Rovers' Cliftonhill Stadium, is 90 years old this month and while chairman Frank Meade is keen to celebrate this milestone, he has no desire for the ageing ground to reach a century of use.

Cliftonhill was opened just four months before the Lanarkshire side's only Scottish Cup final appearance, secured after a semi-final win over Rangers, with Kilmarnock taking the silverware with a 3-2 triumph and it would be fair to say that both the club and the ground have never been so polished since.

Financing the building of the new ground just after the German fleet was scuttled in Scapa Flow was an unusual venture with Meade explaining: "Rovers had played elsewhere since being formed in 1882, most notably at the Meadow in the Whifflet area, and moving here was seen as a real feather in the cap of the then board. A bit like now, Rovers were not a wealthy club and the build was funded by giving shares in the club in return for work carried out or for supplying materials."

"Our previous chairman, David Shanks, told me that the shares he held came to be in his family when his grandfather accepted them for supplying materials for the stand. We have always been a club with strong survival instincts, relying in the past often only on goodwill and the role we had played in the community."

That spirit of ensuring survival is tangibly evident with the floodlights at the ground being re-housed from their first home of Cardiff Arms Park at the turn of the new millennium, replacing the original set of lights erected in 1968, which had been purchased from the remnants of Third Lanark's Cathkin Park.

The chairman's attendance at games does not stretch far enough back to remember the players who made it to the Scottish Cup final, or when an incredible 27,381 fans squeezed in for a cup-tie against Rangers in 1936, with the lifelong fan becoming a regular visitor to the stadium nearly 50 years ago when matchday at Cliftonhill was a very different experience to what it is now.

Meade said: "I started coming here in the early 1960s when both banks of terracing were used and Rovers were attracting crowds of between nine and ten thousand people. It is scary to think how far football has declined during that time as people have become more affluent and had more choice. My interest came about through my school teacher, Tom Loughran, who took the school team on a Saturday morning and then played as a big rugged centre-half for the Rovers in the afternoon."

Loughran's influence ended up having the wrong affect on Meade's education, with the retired BT Accountant confessing: "I used to bunk off school to watch afternoon games, especially cup replays, before we had floodlights and the place was packed out. You would get a terrific atmosphere because Cliftonhill is bowl shaped and not the straight-cut functional way stadiums are now."

Speedway, stock car and greyhound racing all made appearances at Cliftonhill during the 1970s, which now has a capacity limited at 1,200, which is more than sufficient for the near 400 average attendance. Hard and very often unpaid work from club fans and officials have kept the ground open with Meade, appointed five years ago amidst a cash crisis at the club advising: "We have a good relationship with North Lanarkshire Council and we work well with them in terms of obtaining our annual safety certificate. Safety requirements have ramped up over the years, as have the associated costs whereas income has come down from reduced crowds, so we only utilise the stand area now."

Despite his fond schoolboy memories, making a 31,000 profit last year from a 225,000 turnover and five years of success in keeping the ground going, Meade is looking forward to the day when Cliftonhill is no more and a bright new future for the club dawns. Plans for a community stadium are well advanced.

Meade said: "We have monthly meetings with the council and they have been wonderfully supportive. They have financed all the research and we have not spent a penny. A site has been identified, plans have been drawn and we are now discussing how the operating model would work. If it is a community-owned facility, we may have to look at changing the status of Albion Rovers from a Private Limited Company to more of a Charitable Trust. Stenhousemuir is the kind of model we are looking at with an artificial pitch with different parts of the community interacting with the club every day."

Meade was asked what would happen to Cliftonhill and he replied: "I am hoping that we can announce further details early next year but the ground will be sold.

"There is a shortage of housing in Coatbridge and there is outline planning permission for houses to be built here. Cliftonhill has been great but we absolutely do not want to be here for its one hundredth birthday."

&#149 Frank Meade's full interview can be read at The Co-operative Insurance League Insider at theleagueinsider.com.