Station Park is the sort of ground visiting supporters still talk about on the way home. Tucked off Carseview Road on the edge of Forfar, it has been Forfar Athletic’s home since the 1880s, and it still feels like a proper Scottish football ground rather than a bowl of identical seats. You can walk all four sides of the pitch. Most of what you stand on is terracing. The only real seating is in the David McGregor Stand on the north side, a covered grandstand opened in 1959 and later named for the club’s long-serving secretary, director and life president.
If your club has been given a segregated allocation, expect the open West Terrace, the Mert End, behind the western goal. The name comes from the cattle market just over the wall. It is the larger of the two ends, with about twenty steps and a bank that rises higher on one side than the other. On bigger days part of the David McGregor Stand can also be opened to away supporters. When segregation is not in force, most visiting fans drift to the covered South Terrace opposite the main stand. It runs the full length of the pitch, keeps the weather off, and gives a side-on view of both goals. Buy the ticket that matches the allocation. The club marks tickets as home or away support.
The East Terrace, behind the other goal, is smaller, uncovered and slightly curved, which helps people at the ends see the goalmouth. Turnstiles there open almost straight onto the terrace. The pitch is a 3G surface, laid in 2012, measuring 115 by 69 yards, and it slopes gently down from the Mert End towards the east. Dugouts sit in front of the main stand. That stand covers only about half the touchline, with wooden bench seats, a row of pillars, and the Forfar Wall of Fame on the front wall. Published capacities run from about 4,600 in recent guides up to 6,777, with 739 seats. The record crowd, 10,780 against Rangers in February 1970, would not fit under today’s limits.
Parking beside the ground is tight. Use the Market Muir or the Muir Street car park and walk, rather than circling Carseview Road at kick-off. From the south, leave the A90 at the Kirriemuir Junction for the A926, then follow Brechin Road, Market Street and the second left into Carseview Road. The postcode is DD8 3BT. There is no station in Forfar. The railway that gave the ground its name closed in the Beeching cuts of 1968. Trains to Dundee, then the 20 or 20A bus, getting off at the County Buildings or in town, is the usual public-transport route. Arbroath is the other nearby railhead, about fourteen miles away.
Standard league prices recently listed by the club are £16 for an adult in the David McGregor Stand, £15 to stand, £10 for concessions aged 14 to 17 and over 65, and £5 for under-14s, who must be with a paying adult. Prices move, so check before you travel. Ask for a Forfar bridie, the local meat and onion pasty, before the first batch sells out. Pies are the fallback. Toilets, the club shop and the small bar behind the main stand are basic, and that is rather the point. On a sharp afternoon, with the wind off the fields behind the stand, Station Park still feels close to the game. Wrap up. The ends are open.