It was the home of Scarborough F.C., a defunct football club who last played in the English Conference North before they were dissolved on 20 June 2007 with debts of £2.5 million.

Although Scarborough’s 12 seasons in the league were all spent in the fourth tier, the stadium hosted several cup ties against teams from the top two divisions.

The arena had dual usage in the 1991–92, when the Scarborough Pirates (Rugby League) played at the ground, only four games had crowds in excess of 1,000.

Baseball was another sport played at the ground for a single season in 1936, the 'Scarborough Seagulls' attracted crowds of up to 1,500 people.

The stadium also hosted a floodlit cricket match in September 1980, when a Brian Close XI defeated Scarborough by 26 runs, in front of a 2,000 crowd.

The ground was used briefly for Greyhound racing on Tuesday nights, during the summer months of July & August, in the early 1960's.

1000+ attendances at matches persuaded the club to move away from the ground after just one season to the Old Showground, and ultimately Silver Royd, Scalby.

The Rugby club still played the occasional 'Hospital Shield' match at the Athletic Ground and also their 1951 Silver Jubilee game, which attracted a crowd of 1,800.

The planned capacity was around 4,000 and the amount of land that the club would own was 15 acres (61,000 m2) of which some would have been used for the stadium, with room for expansion, and the rest used to lease to offices etc.

failed to convince the Scarborough Borough Council that its proposals to sell the McCain Stadium to a housing developer would raise enough money to both to pay off the debts and build a new ground.

He said that the club would be interested in moving back to the stadium but that the vandalism was making that option more difficult and expensive.

It was also revealed that Featherstone Rovers RLFC had agreed to purchase the East and West stands and undertake the demolition works that the council required for nil cost.

[15][16][17] On 19 September 2011 bulldozers finally moved in to begin the demolition of the ground [18] completing in late November 2011.

[19] On 13 August 2015 Scarborough Borough Council granted planning permission for a Lidl supermarket to be built on the by now flattened site.