Tynecastle Park has long been the home of Heart of Midlothian Football Club, with the ground having hosted football matches since 1886.
In the early 1990s, however, Hearts were very much willing to forego all that history as the club looked to move out of their spiritual home and relocate to a purpose-built arena more than seven miles away from Gorgie.
During February 1991, Scotland's back pages were awash with stories of then Hearts chairman, the late Wallace Mercer, announcement that the club were in the process of drawing up plans to build a 30,000 all-seater stadium at Newton Farm, Millerhill to the south east of the capital.
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Coming just months after Mercer's controversial failed bid to stage a takeover of Edinburgh rivals Hibs, the £25 million plan envisaged the Gorgie side moving into the ground for the start of the 1993 season.
The unnamed ground, which would have likely had an official sponsor, was to be part of a wider £100 million scheme that would include offices, a superstore, a hotel, a motel, three restaurants and a business park.
The 120-acre site would boast its own rail link at nearby Shawfair and car park able to accommodate 5,000 cars and 350 coaches. Hearts officials said the scheme would create around 3,000 new jobs for the area.
"Give us the go-ahead, and we'll deliver the goods," Mercer told the press at the time.
The shock announcement followed weeks of rumours that Hearts and Hibs had been in talks over a potential groundshare. Artist's impressions were even drawn up for the new stadium at Straiton.
Wallace Mercer, however, was adamant that Hearts fully intended to go it alone with their Millerhill plans, stating that Tynecastle was no longer fit for purpose.
Commenting on the stadium plan, Hearts supporters' secretary Alex Jones said: "It's a great idea, but it will cause a lot of heartbreak among older fans.
"But at the end of the day, if Hearts have a winning team, the fans will follow them to the ends of the earth."
While many Jambos fans were delighted at their club's grandiose plans, there was a portion of the Gorgie faithful who were distraught at the prospect of leaving Tynecastle - but the reality was that Hearts would need to source a vast sum of cash just to upgrade the old ground.
Published in January 1990, in the wake of the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, in which 97 fans died as the result of a crush, the Taylor Report recommended that all major stadiums in England and Scotland be converted to an all-seater model in order to prevent future footballing tragedies. It was decided that clubs in both the English and Scottish top flights had until August 1994 to make the necessary changes to their stadia.
Tynecastle Park at this time was far from what you might call a modern stadium. Standing only terracing was prevalent throughout with only two portions of the ground - including the 1914 grandstand by Archibald Leitch - providing cover from the elements. Many of the facilities at Tynecastle, such as the toilets, were utterly dreadful.
Modernising the Gorgie ground would not exactly be a walk in the park. The stadium was hemmed in by tenements on one side and a secondary school on the other, massively restricting the size and scope of any new stands the club wanted to build.
It would cost millions of pounds to bring the stadium up to scratch. To those in control of the purse strings at Hearts, financing a brand new ground at Millerhill seemed like the only sensible option.
But there was just one little problem; the proposed site for Hearts' new development was situated on protected 'green belt' land. The future of the stadium depended wholly on Lothian Region councillors giving the go-ahead.
Months of wrangling with the council followed, but, unfortunately for Wallace Mercer and Hearts, the final decision was not the one they desired.
In November 1991, the Millerhill masterplan was shot down by the Lothian Region Transportation Committee. They rejected the £100 million scheme over fears that the green belt would be negatively impacted by a huge increase in traffic congestion.
Undeterred, Mercer ploughed forward with the stadium plan. In 1992 Hearts even looked at building their new ground in other out-of-town sites, including Ingliston Showground and Hermiston.
Yet again, however, environmental concerns would see the club fail to come to an agreement with the authorities, leaving Hearts with only one option: redevelop Tynecastle.
In 1994, Hearts commenced with their stadium redevelopment by demolishing three sides of the ground. The conversion of newly-renamed Tynecastle Stadium into an all-seater facility was finally completed in 1997 with the opening of the Gorgie Stand.
Incredibly, this would not be the last time Hearts supporters would be faced with the turmoil of departing Tynecastle.
In 2004, under the stewardship of unpopular CEO Chris Robinson, the club, which was mired in debt at the time, came within a whisker of selling the ground for £20 million to Cala Homes and renting nearby Murrayfield Stadium - the 67,000-seater home of Scottish rugby - instead. The sale and ludicrous rental plan was eventually cancelled when the club was purchased the following January by Russian-Lithuanian businessman Vladimir Romanov.
As every Jambo knows, much has happened to the club since the Romanov era - not least the club narrowly staving off liquidation in 2013 - but the completion of the new main stand in 2017, which increased capacity to just under 20,000, means Hearts FC will be staying put at Tynecastle Park for many years to come.
