Saints ready to demolish a stand at McDiarmid

The club is hooking-up with Perth council for a £13 million roads project – a commuter link to reduce congestion – and the north stand occupied by visiting fans is being earmarked for demolition.

But yesterday Brown admitted he would restrict McDiarmid Park to 6,000 seats if he was building the ground today.

He said: “Inverness is a bigger city with a bigger catchment area than us and it has only just increased the capacity of the stadium to 6,000.

“Even if we lose the north stand and replace it with something else, McDiarmid will still hold 8,500, which is more than ample for us. St Mirren’s new ground is around 8,000 and Paisley has a population of 95,000. We haven’t had a full house at McDiarmid for more than a decade.

“I don’t envisage this project happening until there is a major turnaround in the national economy but it will provide a dropping roast for the football club over many years if the stand goes to allow a road to open up land for housing and industry.”

Perth fans have been running a website poll and 70 per cent are backing Brown.

He said: “We can’t get 2,000 season ticket holders and even visits from the Old Firm aren’t filling the ground, or anything like it. I can barely remember our last sell-out.

“Any supporter who has seen two stands lying empty for many of the games in the SPL in the past two years will know that this has to be done.

“If the stand goes, space will be created and I would like to see something take its place. I wouldn’t want a gap site with the motorway passing outside a fence line. We could fill in that end of the ground with dressing rooms, a gym and physio’s area, freeing-up more space in our main stand. It would work well for the football club. It can be a win-win scenario.”