Two county clubs set to play at new home early next year

Dec 16 2010 by David Bell, Hamilton Advertiser

TWO county clubs have been given assurances that they will playing at a new home ground within the first few weeks of 2011.

Carluke Rovers are planning to move into a newly built stadium named after one of their most famous players - Hearts star John Cumming - as their Loch Park site is taken over for a supermarket.

And Wishaw are drawing up plans to turn a playing area at Beltane Playing Field into their first home in almost 20 years after signing a lease with North Lanarkshire Council.

Rovers manager Whitey Moffat said: “We’ve been talking with South Lanarkshire Council and developers about the move since August, when we spoke about an entry date of mid-December.

“Then the bad weather set in over the past few weeks and that entry date was understandably put back, first to early January, and now it's been put back again till late January.

“We’re all looking forward to the move. The new-build stadium has a 3G artificial pitch which means we should be able to train regularly with little chance of our games being called off apart from severe frost.

“There's nothing more frustrating for players and coaches than to try and squeeze in training sessions in a variety of available places, knowing that there's not going to be a game on the Saturday.”

While Moffat looks forward with optimism to playing at the new stadium, he has, nevertheless, some regret leaving behind Rovers' many exciting and successful years at Loch Park.

“It's been a long association for me, especially at the original Loch Park before we moved into the current stadium in 1970s with its running track round the playing field.

“The old Loch Park had a great atmosphere, with a stepped terracing that made it feel as though the crowd were right on top of you - and in those days we really had big crowds attending our games.”

Wishaw, who have been without a ground to call “home” since vacating Recreation Park in the early 1990s, playing home games for spells at Victoria Park (home of Coltness United and now Newmains United) and Wishaw Sports Centre.

Co-manager Alex Young said: “The size of the area of ground we will have at Beltane Park on a long-term lease from North Lanarkshire Council is very impressive and more space than we anticipated.

“The portacabins which we will use as changing rooms for both teams and referee are on site and we managed to get the fencing up round the ground before the snow set in.

“One of our sponsors, M-Tec, have helped us on site but we've hit a snag about connecting the power and water supply, partly due to the weather.

“Now we are experiencing some difficulty in bringing in the planned additional portacabins to provide kitchen and toilet facilities because we need a crane to lift them off the existing site into Beltane - and that will cost us money which we don't have after paying for the fencing.”