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The East Stirlingshire Thread


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43 minutes ago, drs said:

My understanding - 

Alan Mackin still owns the land, he was trying to sell it back to the Shire last season as he cant get planning permission for his housing project. Karma being a bitch.

It would cost a lot to bring what remains upto any sort of licenced standard, even if that was possible there wouldnt be any requirement to build something beyond what the likes of Dumbarton and East Fife currently have.

I've also heard that he wanted to renovate the ground with his own money and rent it to the club, which, if actually true, would have to have been a scam of some kind - that is if the club totally lost their heads and started working with him again in some capacity. I'm not surprised he can't get planning permission - the place is already surrounded by flats and the retail park, so there would be a lot of disruption around the area. 

Anyway, as for the original point, I do enjoy the LL more than I did the fourth tier. It probably helps that my work situation changed around the time we got relegated so I could actually go to games regularly, but between being more competitive and seeing new teams, I have enjoyed it. 

While the ex-juniors coming through is definately going to bring bigger crowds (and hopefully a few local-ish derbies for us against Camelon, Bo'ness, Linlithgow) unfortunately it looks like it will be at the expense of other teams who bring fans (albeit maybe not in the same number) and have a great heritage at this level, like Whitehill and Dalbeattie, rather than someone like Edusport. They deserve to be in the league because they got here on merit, but I doubt anyone would really care if they got relegated - whereas Whitehill will be a loss to the league if they go down, I feel. (there will certainly be less drama on the LL threads here, that's for sure)

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54 minutes ago, drs said:

My understanding - 

Alan Mackin still owns the land, he was trying to sell it back to the Shire last season as he cant get planning permission for his housing project. Karma being a bitch.

It would cost a lot to bring what remains upto any sort of licenced standard, even if that was possible there wouldnt be any requirement to build something beyond what the likes of Dumbarton and East Fife currently have.

Looking at Google maps its just a vacant plot of land so it would be a complete new build.  I suppose as long as it remains undeveloped it's always possible.

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As AlansHotBath has pointed out its surrounded by flats and only has that on

26 minutes ago, AlansHotBath said:

I've also heard that he wanted to renovate the ground with his own money and rent it to the club, which, if actually true, would have to have been a scam of some kind - that is if the club totally lost their heads and started working with him again in some capacity. I'm not surprised he can't get planning permission - the place is already surrounded by flats and the retail park, so there would be a lot of disruption around the area. 

I was at the Shire game last season where he turned up bold as brass, he got thrown out :):)  Couldnt believe he had the balls to be stood behind me in the entrance queue, actually thought I was seeing things to start with.

I think his flats plan was rejected by the council owing to parking and access concerns, the current road in (where the turnstyles were) would be unsuitable with 30 or so new flats build at the end of it which means he'd have to spend on creating a new access road at the "wall" end which would probably need a roundabout etc and he turfed out the Shire at almost exactly the same moment that retail started dying on its arse so there is no need for the Retail park to buy it either.

The way he treated the club I honestly hope he doesnt make a single penny from that piece of land, as i said Karma is a bitch.

Edited by drs
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30 minutes ago, drs said:

As AlansHotBath has pointed out its surrounded by flats and only has that on

I was at the Shire game last season where he turned up bold as brass, he got thrown out :):)  Couldnt believe he had the balls to be stood behind me in the entrance queue, actually thought I was seeing things to start with.

I think his flats plan was rejected by the council owing to parking and access concerns, the current road in (where the turnstyles were) would be unsuitable with 30 or so new flats build at the end of it which means he'd have to spend on creating a new access road at the "wall" end which would probably need a roundabout etc and he turfed out the Shire at almost exactly the same moment that retail started dying on its arse so there is no need for the Retail park to buy it either.

The way he treated the club I honestly hope he doesnt make a single penny from that piece of land, as i said Karma is a bitch.

Yeah, the more you consider the logistics of it the more you realise it was a daft idea - which makes what happened to the club even worse, really. 

I think it's unlikely he'll get anything from it, tbh - there's no real use for it at the moment, given the amount of work that would have to go in in such an awkward area. Maybe the council would buy it off him to stop it being such an eyesore, but even then I doubt it - unless you live in Firs Street or adjacent you wouldn't know anything is there. 

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When Spencer left the club and the fans through shiretrust bought his 46% shareholding of East Stirlingshire A shares ie the part of the club which is the footy entity rather than the the B shares part of the company which owes Firs Park, unfortunately we were not long afterwards with a HMRC tax demand with days to pay it. Memory is a poor thing but sure it was a week or a few wks at most to pay it. HRMC refused to give us time to pay despite a Scottish Premier League team at the same time having a tax demand and being given time. HMRC were planning to close the Shire if the tax bill wasn't paid so the club approached Mackin for financial help as we were unable to raise the funds. Mackin agreed to paid the Bill (Think it was £50k) and the plan was for him to recoup the amount from the sale proceeds of Firs Park on top of what he was already due. Basically it was put to him that he would get less money overall if HMRC sold Firs Park as a fire sale rather than it being sold on the open market.

With Firs Park still not sold and Mackin resigning from the B shareholders board earlier this season he is stilldue these additional monies out of pocket. It is ironic that thoughtout his time at the Shire when he failed to put in promised monies into the club and then ultimately tried to kill the club to assist strip it that he only put money in after we had left firs park to protect as asset that is as far away as ever from selling. Milles away from his dream of getting a sale price of £1.5m at the outset.

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6 minutes ago, Dead said:

With Firs Park still not sold and Mackin resigning from the B shareholders board earlier this season he is still due these additional monies out of pocket.

Does that mean he still owns controlling shares of the company that owns Firs Park?

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I don’t like the Lowland League because of how meaningless fixtures become as soon as you lose a couple of games. In league 2 we would always be in the play off hunt until April or so, this year our chance at the title was gone by the end of August. Fair enough we were in a slight bit of danger of being dragged into a fight to avoid 15th but that didn’t make the games anymore tense.

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On 1/25/2019 at 13:40, drs said:

As AlansHotBath has pointed out its surrounded by flats and only has that on

I was at the Shire game last season where he turned up bold as brass, he got thrown out :):)  Couldnt believe he had the balls to be stood behind me in the entrance queue, actually thought I was seeing things to start with.

I think his flats plan was rejected by the council owing to parking and access concerns, the current road in (where the turnstyles were) would be unsuitable with 30 or so new flats build at the end of it which means he'd have to spend on creating a new access road at the "wall" end which would probably need a roundabout etc and he turfed out the Shire at almost exactly the same moment that retail started dying on its arse so there is no need for the Retail park to buy it either.

The way he treated the club I honestly hope he doesnt make a single penny from that piece of land, as i said Karma is a bitch.

Aye I got told by one of the Shire fans I know about Mackin turning up:lol:.

Its ironic that the only part of the ground which ended up being worth anything would have been the old Byson End, the "Berlin Wall" to our younger readers with the Retail Park folk having to buy it off the club as an access road back in the early 90s when the development started.

It anyone was to have made "real money" off the ground it would really have had to have been sold to the retail park developers at that time obviously they only need a wee bit instead of the whole lot.

 

 

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12 hours ago, MAC THE KNIFE said:

BUT WHEN THE RETAIL PARK WAS BEING BUILT MOST OF THE SHIRE DIRECTORS WANTED THE SHIRE TO PLAY FOOTBALL AT THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE LEVEL WITH THEIR OWN GROUND . & THEN CAME Mr MACKIN . THE EVIL  MUTATION of  MTFC` s   Mr  BLOBBY 

My grans uncle was a director at shire was there a long time. Don't think he was keen on mackin

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Firs Park belongs to the Shire shareholders (B shares), with Alan Mackin being the largest shareholder and having control, he is the major beneficiary of any sale. How he obtained his shares is an other matter. 

His sole aim was to run the club down , sell the ground, then pocket the money. This led to the nonsense of finishing bottom of the league each season and the ridicule which goes with it, right up Mackin's street. 

We had a pretty decent team at the time Mackin struck, with great youth players coming through, Derek Ure and Brown Ferguson among them. 

We had been unlucky to lose to Livingston in the Challenge Cup semi final under manager, George Fairley but soon Fairley was gone, along with Charlie Kelly, Gordon Russell (who'd both had testimonials with the Shire) and all the senior players, as Mackin began the cuts, including the youth squads. 

There may be people out there with the means to buy out Mackin but no one him to make a penny out of it. 

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10 hours ago, Nimmo's Notes said:

Firs Park belongs to the Shire shareholders (B shares), with Alan Mackin being the largest shareholder and having control, he is the major beneficiary of any sale. How he obtained his shares is an other matter. 

His sole aim was to run the club down , sell the ground, then pocket the money. This led to the nonsense of finishing bottom of the league each season and the ridicule which goes with it, right up Mackin's street. 

We had a pretty decent team at the time Mackin struck, with great youth players coming through, Derek Ure and Brown Ferguson among them. 

We had been unlucky to lose to Livingston in the Challenge Cup semi final under manager, George Fairley but soon Fairley was gone, along with Charlie Kelly, Gordon Russell (who'd both had testimonials with the Shire) and all the senior players, as Mackin began the cuts, including the youth squads. 

There may be people out there with the means to buy out Mackin but no one him to make a penny out of it. 

If he had any decency he should give hem the ground back then the Shire could get back home

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  • 2 weeks later...

I used to enjoy going to watch the shire, my brother played in the youth and first first team under Hugh mccann. It was always an atmospheric ground and the park was a pretty decent surface aswell. It is sad that it now sits unused and the shire are having to play elsewhere, all in the name of one man trying to line his grubby wee pockets. 

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Was really impressed with out performance against Colts yesterday. Clinical in front of goal in the first half and controlled the game well in the second to stop them getting a real foothold back in the game. Partnership of McGregor and White in the middle of the park played well also, which bodes well with Del now more on the sidelines and Willox having gone back to Peterhead.

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