Austadiums Forum

Spent a week in Scotland, got back last Wednesday. There's not a lot to do in Glasgow (god forsaken city that it is) so I went to watch Partick Thistle vs Dundee at Firhill Stadium. Turns out it's the closest soccer ground to the Glasgow CBD. I go tthere about an hour before start, turns out they didn't open the gates until about 45 minutes before, but I got to take some photos of the place. They're nothing overly special, but better than nothing.
It's actually not that bad a ground, given they only get 3 or 4,000 a match. I was expecting a real dump, but it's a decent enough ground. From what I read about the place, it's got a current capacity of about 13,000, with a record crowd of 50,000.

Club administration


Jackie Husband Stand - where the home fans sit


Away stand - dunno what it's called. The one on the right is where they sit, the one on the left is closed, I assume until they get a game which warrants it opening.


The hill at the other end - it's closed as well. But Glasgow weather is so sh*t I doubt anyone would stand there anyway. The day I went was a typical day, about 5 degrees and the rain sheeting in at right angles.


Wasn't a bad couple of hours spent - the locals have 2 types of songs. One type talks about how they're not Rangers or Celtic and the other is about how loyal they are. To quote Billy Connolly - 'When I was young I thought they were called Partick Thistle Nil!'
That's my kind of club.

Impressive photos mate...

Does the hill get used?

Wigan's old ground Springfield Park had a hill. I think Duncan Adams' website had photos of people sitting on it.

I'm not the authority on it, but it was closed when I was there and i'd say it wouldn't get opened unless the expected attendance justified it. The place seemed to have about 8-10,000 seats, and their football record (or whatever you call the program you buy at the gate) which had all their results from the year didn't show any crowds remotely close to that.

The all-seater rule applies in Scotland so the hill is there for decorative purposes only.

nah that "hill" does'nt get used...but it's not really a hill in the aussies sense, it's a turfed over terrace..

incidentally, firhill has staged rugby league games in the past,including some RLWC 2000 game i think..

Thanks Rob - going to Glasgow and posting these pices - very good.
Covering Partick Thistle's Firhill Stadium and not Rangers or Celtic - priceless. In the best traditions of Austadiums.

nice stadium, good pics to accompany it.

quite clean and well kept.

having a look at the hill it looked to me that they just turfed over an old terrace and then I checked google maps...

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&hl=e ... &z=18&om=1

The ground used to have a dog track around it back in the day. Hence it has the semi-curcular ends like the aforementioned Springfield Park.

As for the hill/terrace, they could only be used for Cup games as League matches need to be all seated so they probably decided to get rid of them as the only time they would have patrons would be if they drew Rangers or Celtic.

hot_dogma wrote:
As for the hill/terrace, they could only be used for Cup games as League matches need to be all seated so they probably decided to get rid of them as the only time they would have patrons would be if they drew Rangers or Celtic.

Funny you said that - the ground is hosting Rangers on Sunday in a 1/4 final replay, after Partick managed a 1-1 draw at Ibrox. Will probably be the biggest crowd there for many years i'd say.

There's only one team in Glasgow.....

speaking of Partick v Gers...there's some photos of the game and Firhill in this thread. Including a couple of, um, well I don't know how to put it. Just have a gander.

http://forum.football365.com/index.php? ... 66&start=0&

Good god

I've always found soccer to be very exciting - but not THAT exciting.

Maybe they should rename the ground Firmhill.