page_title: Tynecastle Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tynecastle Park / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo taken in Edinburgh on December 16th, 2006.
context_page_description: Tynecastle Park is a football stadium situated in the Gorgie area of Edinburgh, which is the home ground of Scottish Professional Football League club Heart of Midlothian. It has also hosted Scotland international matches, and been used as a neutral venue for Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup semi-finals. Tynecastle has a seating capacity of 19,852, which makes it the sixth-largest football stadium in Scotland. Hearts have played at the present site of Tynecastle since 1886.
context_section_description: After Hearts was formed in 1874, the club played at sites in the Meadows, Powburn and Powderhall. Hearts first moved to the Gorgie area, in the west of Edinburgh, in 1881. This pitch, known as "Tynecastle Park" or "Old Tynecastle", stood on the site of the present-day Wardlaw Street and Wardlaw Terrace. As this site was then regarded as being 'out of town', Hearts would sometimes stage two matches for the price of one, or set an admission price much lower than Edinburgh derby rivals Hibs. In 1886, with the city continuing to expand, tenements replaced the old ground and Hearts moved across Gorgie Road to the present site (also known as "Tynecastle Park", or "New Tynecastle"), which was leased from Edinburgh Corporation. Hearts played a friendly against Bolton Wanderers to inaugurate their new home on 10 April 1886. Tynecastle staged its first Scottish Football League match on 23 August 1890, when Hearts lost 5–0 to Celtic.
  Hearts won the Scottish Cup in 1891, which provided the club with sufficient finances for a new clubhouse. Tynecastle hosted its first international fixture in 1892, a 6–1 victory for Scotland  against Wales. Only 1,200 fans attended the match because a snowstorm had led many fans to assume that it would be postponed. 1892 also saw a roof constructed on the original "South" stand. In 1895 Tynecastle hosted a "World Championship" match between the winner of the English Football League First Division, Sunderland, and the Scottish league champions, Hearts. The trophy was won by Sunderland, who beat Hearts by a 5–3 score. Tynecastle hosted another "World Championship" game in 1902, when Hearts beat Tottenham Hotspur 3–1.
  Tynecastle underwent substantial changes in the early twentieth century. A small stand and pavilion were built in 1903. The banks of terracing were greatly increased in 1906, giving a total capacity of 61,784. In 1911, a covered enclosure was erected on the western "distillery" side. The two old stands and pavilion were replaced in 1914 by a pitch-length grandstand (the present Main Stand), designed by the renowned stadium architect Archibald Leitch. To partly fund the cost of the new stand, Hearts sold Percy Dawson to Blackburn Rovers for a British record transfer fee of £2,500. A number of items were omitted from the first estimate of the stand, which meant that its cost doubled to £12,000.
  Hearts purchased the ground in 1926. Over the next four years, the terraces were expanded using ash from the nearby Haymarket railway yards. In 1927, Hearts gave the BBC permission to begin radio commentaries from the ground. New turnstiles were built on Wheatfield Street and subways created to allow access to the terraces. Tynecastle's record attendance was achieved in 1932, when 53,396 attended a Scottish Cup tie against Rangers. Tynecastle was now tightly squeezed on three sides, however, by narrow streets, Tynecastle High School and bonded warehouses of the North British Distillery. Hearts considered moving to Murrayfield Stadium, which had opened in 1925. There was also a proposal to move to a new ground in Sighthill. The start of the Second World War halted these schemes, however.
  The terraces were concreted in 1951 and Tynecastle became Scotland's first all-concrete stadium in 1954. Following the modernisation of the stadium, the club architects said that the capacity stood at 54,359, but for safety reasons only 49,000 tickets were printed and sold for big matches. Floodlights were installed at Tynecastle in 1957. A roof was constructed along part of the "distillery" side and in the north-west corner of the ground in 1959. This work was paid for by the sale of Dave Mackay for £32,000 to Tottenham Hotspur.
  No further changes were made to Tynecastle until stricter ground safety regulations came into effect in the 1970s. Hearts also lacked the finances to redevelop Tynecastle, as the club were relegated from the Premier Division three times in five seasons in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hearts began to perform better under the ownership of Wallace Mercer, who took control in 1981. The capacity
caption: The Gorgie and Wheatfield stands at dusk
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