HAMPDEN Park’s status as Scottish football’s hallowed ground stands in the balance today – yet such uncertainty isn’t exactly new in the 103-year history of this Mount Florida stadium. As the half-time oranges were being taken last night by the SFA’s seven-man board in the great two-day Hampden-Murrayfield debate, it seemed worth recalling the season of 1999-2000, and the last time that debates about this famous old ground’s existence were creating headlines. Andy Mitchell, head of the SFA’s communications team back then, provides the expert witness in an epic tale of brinkmanship which lies beneath many of the issues being discussed today.

“It is a long, long tale,” said Mitchell. “The case for Hampden’s redevelopment goes back to the 1970s, and it rumbled on through the 1980s and the 1990s. The flaw was the decision to re-roof and re-do the terracing on both sides - ie develop the ground in its original format, the oval shape, and just concrete over the old terraces, which had been put in that shape 100 years earlier to accommodate athletics and cycling as well as football.”

Queen’s Park owned it lock stock and barrel back then, leasing it to the SFA or SFA for Scotand’s various finals, and generally treating it as their “personal estate”. But the arrival of the millennium - and a funding body called the millennium commission - presented them with a badly needed opportunity to do up the main stand. The only problem was that the plans for redevelopment - despite being a mere £63m compared to ten times that lavished on Wembley a few short years later - came in significantly over budget. The famous November Euro 2000 play-off was played in front of the new South Stand, but inside it was only a shell.

“Having been through all the paperwork by December 1999 it was clear there was an £8m funding gap for what they wanted and what they didn’t have, so at that point the SFA stepped in and started negotiating through David Taylor and others,” recalls Mitchell. “They started negotiating with Queen’s Park to lease the stadium and step in as managers of the stadium. Many different parties got involved in that. And they ended up making an offer to Queen’s Park - which the club rejected.

“Queen’s Park were very loathed to let go of Hampden and you can see their point of view but by January it was so severe that they went into administration and an interim administrator was appointed, “ he added. “This dragged on until April 2000, when finally a package was put together, which had Queen’s Park agree to step aside from running the stadium and in return from that they were taken out of administration.” Without this deal, we wouldn’t have the office suites, medical department and football museum which is on the Mount Florida site today.

“No doubt about it, Queen’s Park were on the brink,” said Mitchell. “They had a £6m/£7m millstone round their neck, and as an amateur club there is no way they could ever had found their money. If backers hadn’t stepped in to save the project, they would have gone belly up, Hampden would have been abandoned and Queen’s Park I have no doubt would have gone out of business.

“Fundamentally Hampden was always redeveloped on a shoestring and that is why it was never modernised the way it should have been. There was always a secret desire to make the best of the stadium we could, even if that meant demolishing the east and west stands and bringing them closer to the pitch because it isn’t the greatest spectator experience. But the one big change from 20 years ago is that Lesser Hampden is now fit for purpose - pride aside Queen’s Park could clearly move there quite comfortably. I sincerely hope the decision is taken to stay at Hampden and I say that as an Edinburgh boy who used to play rugby at school in Edinburgh.”