After spending 115 years at Love Street, the club moved half a mile to this purpose built stadium in 2009. The 'new' St Mirren Park, as it is known was built by Barr Construction at a cost of around £8m. The ground is comprised of four separate stands and although it probably won't win many design awards, it is at least modern and functional. The stands on three sides are all single tiered, have large windshields to each side and are of the same height. The East Stand on the remaining side, is taller than the others, but contains a smaller amount of seating, with a large paneled area behind that rises up to the roof. This stand also has the team dugouts in front of it. Although this is the Main Stand at the ground, the television cameras are located opposite.
Away fans are located at one end of the stadium in the North Stand, where just over 1,600 supporters can be accommodated. It is expected that for Old Firm games, that sections of the West Stand will also be made available. As you would expect from a new stadium, the facilities and playing action are good. However, one slight drawback is that the fans are set quite back from the playing action, as there is a large perimeter area surrounding the pitch. Also the St Mirren Park's proximity to Glasgow Airport means that airplanes can be frequently be seen overhead taking off and coming into land.
The ground was called St Mirren Park but in 2018 it was renamed the Simple Digital Arena in a sponsorship deal.
This is the housing estate built on St Mirren's old home ground for 115 years Love Street stadium. Many of the homes are not quite finished yet and as U2 would say it's where the streets have no names.
Now near completion the land was originally bought by Tesco's with the intention of building a supermarket there but Tesco were going through a bad patch at the time and had to sell the land for housing development. The last match played at Love Street was a 0-0 draw with Motherwell on the 3rd of January 2009.
GROUND LAYOUT
A EAST / MAIN STAND
B WEST STAND
C SOUTH STAND
D NORTH STAND (AWAY)
St Mirren haven't made a great start to their campaign back in the top flight after a three year absence with one win and a draw out of their first eight games only Dundee have a worse record in the Ladbrokes Premier up to yet.
Their only win of the season came on the opening day against fellow strugglers Dundee at home winning 2-1 a Danny Mullen brace securing the points with a goal in each half with Elton Ngwatala equalising for Dundee three minutes after Mullen's first with a spectacular 25 yard strike. A 0-0 draw with Celtic has contributed Saints only other point this season.
No matches played last weekend due to international games but St Mirren under 21's did play at the Simple Digital losing 4-2 to Queens park in the Scottish challenge cup.
Kilmarnock have made an impressive start level on points with Celtic in fourth place in the table on sixteen points I think Killie would take that all day long if only their form can last till the end of the season.
Last time out for Kilmarnock was on the 6th of October when they also beat Dundee 2-1 but at Dens Park, Adil Nabi striking first for Dundee after ten minutes but Killie were equal seven minutes later through an own goal by Andrew Boyle. Eamonn Brophy scored the winner from the penalty spot on 54 mins. Brophy was subbed on 72 minutes only for Kilmarnock to be awarded another penalty a minute later, Greg Stewart took this one but Elliot Parish in goal for Dundee pulled off a fine save.
The history of these two teams at the St Mirren Park Stadium stretches nine games with St Mirren winning four, Kilmarnock three with two draws. Infact the very first game at this stadium was between these two clubs on the 31st of January 2009 with the spoils ending even in a 1-1 draw. Kevin Kyle opened the scoring for Kilmarnock with Dennis Wyness netting the equaliser for the Buddies. The game was played in front of a crowd of 7,542 which is still the record attendance for this stadium.
St Mirren held their lead into the second half and didn't seem overly troubled by Killie in the first 45. But it was a different Kilmarnock who came out for part two now kicking toward their fans numbering almost two thousand crammed into the North stand Kilmarnock started to put on a show worthy of their 3rd place position in the league forcing a few corners in the first ten minutes and a change of tactics by Killie was rewarded with an equalising goal, Greg Stewart collecting a short corner played the ball through to Alan Power who lived up to his name with a wonderful strike to draw his club level.
The same tactic brought about the winning goal for Killie if some what controversially this time Stewart crossed the ball into the Buddies box for Aaron Tshibola to head the ball goalwards, St Mirren were convinced that the ball never crossed the line but the linesman saw it differently and awarded Killie the goal.
To make things worse a few minutes later St Mirren had the ball in the net but their celebrations were cut short by another linesman decision, Stephen McGinn's shot was well stopped by Killie keeper Jamie MacDonald but the ball came out to Simeon Jackson who fired the ball home from ten yards but Daniel Mullen was ruled offside but wasn't interfering with play.
St Mirren haven't made a great start to their campaign back in the top flight after a three year absence with one win and a draw out of their first eight games only Dundee have a worse record in the Ladbrokes Premier up to yet.
Their only win of the season came on the opening day against fellow strugglers Dundee at home winning 2-1 a Danny Mullen brace securing the points with a goal in each half with Elton Ngwatala equalising for Dundee three minutes after Mullen's first with a spectacular 25 yard strike. A 0-0 draw with Celtic has contributed Saints only other point this season.
No matches played last weekend due to international games but St Mirren under 21's did play at the Simple Digital losing 4-2 to Queens park in the Scottish challenge cup.
Kilmarnock have made an impressive start level on points with Celtic in fourth place in the table on sixteen points I think Killie would take that all day long if only their form can last till the end of the season.
Last time out for Kilmarnock was on the 6th of October when they also beat Dundee 2-1 but at Dens Park, Adil Nabi striking first for Dundee after ten minutes but Killie were equal seven minutes later through an own goal by Andrew Boyle. Eamonn Brophy scored the winner from the penalty spot on 54 mins. Brophy was subbed on 72 minutes only for Kilmarnock to be awarded another penalty a minute later, Greg Stewart took this one but Elliot Parish in goal for Dundee pulled off a fine save.
The history of these two teams at the St Mirren Park Stadium stretches nine games with St Mirren winning four, Kilmarnock three with two draws. Infact the very first game at this stadium was between these two clubs on the 31st of January 2009 with the spoils ending even in a 1-1 draw. Kevin Kyle opened the scoring for Kilmarnock with Dennis Wyness netting the equaliser for the Buddies. The game was played in front of a crowd of 7,542 which is still the record attendance for this stadium.
ST MIRREN ... 1 KILMARNOCK ... 2
On a dull, cloudy, windy and drizzling day in Paisley these two teams took to the pitch in the hope of entertaining their fans who had braved the elements and turned up to worship their footballing Gods. It was clear from the start that football wasn't going to be the winner on a day like this, the only thing that boomed was the aircraft that took off from Glasgow airport and flew over the field of play.
Things settled down after 14 minutes and it was St Mirren who took the initiative. A free kick awarded on the left hand side of the Kilmarnock box was floated in by Adam Hammill and may have been wind assisted as it some how found it's way into the far corner.
St Mirren held their lead into the second half and didn't seem overly troubled by Killie in the first 45. But it was a different Kilmarnock who came out for part two now kicking toward their fans numbering almost two thousand crammed into the North stand Kilmarnock started to put on a show worthy of their 3rd place position in the league forcing a few corners in the first ten minutes and a change of tactics by Killie was rewarded with an equalising goal, Greg Stewart collecting a short corner played the ball through to Alan Power who lived up to his name with a wonderful strike to draw his club level.
To make things worse a few minutes later St Mirren had the ball in the net but their celebrations were cut short by another linesman decision, Stephen McGinn's shot was well stopped by Killie keeper Jamie MacDonald but the ball came out to Simeon Jackson who fired the ball home from ten yards but Daniel Mullen was ruled offside but wasn't interfering with play. 
Kilmarnock held on to the end and claimed the three points which keeps them in the top three level on points with Celtic but with a four goal difference deficit and as for St Mirren, they remain in the relegation play off position one point in front of Dundee who lost 4-0 to Livingston at Almondvale.
The Simple Digital Arena is a lovely new build and I'm so glad that Saints have got back into the Premier league where a team with a ground like this belong. It may be on the small side on comparison with an English league ground be deemed to be good enough for league two but it is the way forward and does it's job for the Renfrewshire side and is also very pleasing on the eye, compared with what I saw at Motherwell the other week St Mirren Park is an absolute winner.
I'd also like to mention the away support almost two thousand Killie fans descended on Paisley this afternoon and were the twelfth man in their sides performance. Quite a few of them were on my train on the way back to Glasgow Central and when they alighted at the said station sang their hearts out all the way across to the far exit and up the street to Queen street station to catch their connection home. They were in good voice but I saw no sign of trouble, they are a credit to their club.
MATCH DETAILS
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