Muirton Park, Scotland (1925–1989)
St. Johnstone Football Club
Muirton Park was the second stadium of the Scottish club St. Johnstone Football Club in Perth, Scotland, being used between 1924 and 1989, making it its longest running stadium.
St. Johnstone, founded in 1884, initially focused on cricket. However, in the year following its founding, with football becoming increasingly popular in the United Kingdom, it was decided to leave the criquet in the background and prioritize football. In its early years, the club played its games at Recreation Grounds, a field located opposite Perth Prison. As the club grew and became more popular, it became clear that a larger stadium with more infrastructure was needed to serve the public. With the conclusion that a renovation at Recreation Grounds was too complex and economically unviable, a decision was made to build a new stadium elsewhere. To this end, the club acquired land in the Muirton neighborhood and built Muirton Park. The stadium opened on Christmas Day 1924, in a 2–1 win for St. Johnstone against Queen’s Park F.C., with an audience of 12,000 people.
The stadium underwent a few renovations that increased its capacity and gave a little more comfort to some sectors of the bleachers in the following years. In 1951, in a draw against Dundee F.C. for the Scottish Cup, Muirton Park received its largest audience in its history, a total of 29,972 people.
In 1983, with the rise of St. Johnstone to the first national division, a series of reforms were required for the stadium to be designated as safe to play in the main championships in the country. During the following years, the club offered a financially viable solution to resolve the issue, until in 1989 the UK supermarket chain ASDA made a proposal to buy the stadium’s land. As part of the agreement, ASDA would bear the costs of building a new stadium in the west of the city, which would become the club’s current stadium, McDiarmid Park.
Muirton Park’s last game was on April 29, 1989, in a 1–0 loss to Ayr United F.C.
