Motherwell to renovate the John Hunter Stand

THE ban on spectators due to the coronavirus crisis plus the £3.2million sale of midfielder David Turnbull to Celtic in August has allowed Motherwell to carry out essential renovation work on the John Hunter Stand at Fir Park in recent weeks.

Repairs were required if the Premiership club was to be granted a healthy and safety certificate by North Lanarkshire Council.

The absence of supporters has, for once, worked in the favour of the club, allowing the builders to get the job done in a quarter of the time it would have normally taken if matches weren’t behind closed doors.

“We’ve taken the opportunity – bearing in mind we sold David Turnbull to Celtic – to take some of that money to upgrade some of the facilities at the stadium,” claimed chief executive Alan Burrows.

“That’s been needing done for some time but it’s hard to do when there are games taking place every week.

“It’s a job that’s probably been five to ten years in the making and it became a priority. I wouldn’t say that we’d been put under pressure by the local authority but, in terms of being granted a safety certificate, it was something that needed to be done.

“Now, because there are no fans in the ground, we were free to remove the seats and carry out the work.

“We have good local suppliers and contractors helping us out by keeping prices competitive and the timing was right because it would’ve been much harder to do if we weren’t playing behind closed doors.

“There aren’t any advantages to the ground being empty on match days but it would’ve taken three or four times longer to get these repairs done if that hadn’t been the case.”