Stirling Albion stop complimentary tickets

Stirling Albion are to cease providing complimentary tickets to visiting clubs and players and will no longer seek free admission from their rivals.

And the First Division club hope to gain financially from the move.

"We fully appreciate that we are challenging the traditional way that football clubs have operated in the past," said spokesman Paul Goodwin.

"But we've always said that football needs to look forward and in certain situations adopt a different approach."

The Binos recently became the first senior Scottish club to be owned by its Supporters' Trust and Goodwin added: "In some cases, we have been asked for 75 complimentary tickets for games at Forthbank by opposition clubs.

"Based on 20 home games a season we are talking about giving away over £20,000 a year.

"Like most football clubs we are operating on very tight budgets and have an obligation to the club to continue to reduce costs and look to increase revenues at every source to provide the strongest possible playing budgets to our manager while working towards a more sustainable financial position for the club.

"If just half those using our complimentary tickets were to pay at the turnstile we would increase the club's income by £10,000 a season and, for us, that would be a huge boost.

"Official representatives of other opposition clubs will continue to be invited as guests to the Forthbank Stadium and should other clubs extend an invitation to us then representatives of our Supporters Trust will take up that kind invitation on behalf of the club.

"We trust that those who have enjoyed watching football at Forthbank over the years by using complimentary tickets will continue to attend and appreciate that their gate money will be going straight into helping sustain our club's future."