Cliftonhill (Albion Rovers)

There’s virtually nothing to say about Cliftonhill, home of Scottish Third Division side Albion Rovers since 1919.

I say Third Division, when I visited the ground Albion were in Division Two. And I’m grasping at straws when it comes to Rovers trivia here.

All I can say is that it’s probably clad in more adverts than the outside of any other football ground, including their shirt sponsors from over ten years ago, complete with a sign declaring that they were their sponsors ten years ago.

If you thought I couldn’t care less about Albion, the fact that nobody in ten years has popped up a ladder to take the sign down shows all you need to know.

We did suspect that we may be missing some sort of lower league beast of a ground, as Cliftonhill is perched high above the Main Street like some sort of footballing cathedral and is padlocked to keep the no doubt numerous fans away during the daytime.

It turns out that firstly, you can pretty much walk into the ground via a housing estate behind the stadium, and secondly that we were wrong. There’s only two stands in the entire stadium. And none have been demolished or fallen down or closed. Just never even built. Which makes me sort of sad, but absolutely in love with Albion Rovers. I’m a sucker for an underdog and Albion are even lower status than this.

I dare say we spent more time in the car park of the B&M Bargains car park opposite the ground than we did at their home, but it was enough for me.

I might not have seen much of Cliftonhill, but I definitely liked what I saw.