« Back to 2004 News Archive

Football Club Ordered to Play Away

A SOUTH of Scotland football club have been ordered to play the remainder of this season’s matches away from home after their facilities were found to fall short of the required standard.

South League title challengers Creetown were hit with the body blow at last week’s meeting of the South of Scotland League Association.

Officials of the association deemed that the club’s Castle Cary Park is in too poor a condition to host senior matches.

In particular they highlighted the referee’s changing and showering facilities as a major reason for their decision.

The club reckon the move will hamper their challenge for honours this season.

But Chairman Eric Houston conceded:

“To be fair this has been going on for four years now — the minutes of a meeting in 2000 said our facilities were not up to scratch then.

“The problem has been a lack of money. We never had a lease on our park which made it impossible to get grants to carry out improvements.

“But we are now in the process of signing a lease with the landowner and we have plans to build a whole new complex, two storey, with brand new changing facilities and a lounge area upstairs.

“Hopefully that can be done within the next two years.

“In the meantime we are hoping to put in Portakabins and connect them to the electricity supply to allow us to return to Castle Cary as soon as possible.”