Falkirk 3 Hamilton Academical 1
The drive to the Falkirk Stadium from my home winds through long-forgotten iron works, passes villages where pits were once the paymasters. My seat in the stand looks out onto Grangemouth and the paraphernalia of a redundant refinery.
All this increases a sense of mean foreboding. Is Falkirk the place where dreams come to die? Is hope merely the presage to brutal, damaging reality?
This sense of melancholy was only increased by spotting John Rankin, the Hamilton manager, parking his car behind a stand and striding towards the stadium before 6pm on a Friday night. Hamilton had seemed to have secured Championship status on the park. They lost it off-field. He later admitted it had been the toughest of weeks.
Hamilton had seemed to have secured Championship status on the park. They lost it off-field. He later admitted it had been the toughest of weeks.
But joy broke out in Falkirk on Friday night. It was unconfined and unbridled among the home support. Their team were back in the top division and the fans were on the park, lifting players above their heads, singing songs and demonstrating football’s enduring ability to make people happy.
In a corridor deep inside the stadium, John McGlynn looked like a man who had survived a drama rather than one who had played a leading role in it.
Falkirk manager John McGlynn celebrates his side’s Friday night promotion party
The Bairns needed their last-day win over Hamilton Accies to finally secure the league trophy
Aidan Nesbitt gets a lift from defender Tom Lang as the celebrations get under way
He has taken his side to two successive titles. An extraordinary achievement. But the overwhelming sense in the wake of triumph was that the link between club, fans and town had been newly and strongly forged.
McGlynn admitted that the club was ‘broken and on its knees’ when he came in. He did not allude to the pain inflicted by a Championship play-off scudding in 2023 when Airdrie went five goals up in the first half of the second leg, eventually winning 6-2 and confining Falkirk to another season in the third tier of Scottish football.
This, one suspects, is not forgotten. Scott Arfield, the returning Falkirk hero, remarked post-match that McGlynn was a man who brooded over failure with more dedication than he celebrated success.
The manager, though, was obviously delighted and, two hours after the match had ended, he made time for one more interview.
‘It was a one-game shoot-out and we came out on top,’ he said of the title battle with Livingston that went to the final fixture. ‘I am so proud of all the people at the club, my backroom staff, Paul Smith, my assistant, the fans, the directors who have turned this club around. This club was broken and on its knees, finishing fifth and sixth in League One before we came in.’
He was obviously lifted by the reaction of the players and the fans when victory was achieved. But was there a personal joy?
Liam Henderson appeared to be acquiring a taste for silverware on the pitch at full-time
‘Absolutely. I am so proud,’ he said. ‘I look upon it as my job to do this and we are delighted we have done it. We have a group of players that back each other and back us and enjoy working here too.’
He allowed himself a smile. ‘I could not be happier,’ he said. ‘I always put on this false impression but inside I am absolutely buzzing, honestly. It’s probably not sunk in yet. Who knows, it is maybe one of those ones that you look back on when you retire and say: “Did we really do that?”’
The work, of course, has already started for next season. As ecstatic players such as Liam Henderson posed for photographs outside the dressing room and music blared down the corridors, McGlynn said: ‘We have been quietly going about things in the background. We have about 18, 19 players here signed up already. We will need to add about five or six.
‘It’s a matter of picking things up now. Allan Fraser has come back in on recruitment and he has been working away, been up and down to England to watch players. There is a bit of time now to organise. If we had gone into the play-off it would have been more difficult. Now we know what is in front of us and it is up to us to bring in players who can complement these players and take us a little stage further.’
Ethan Ross scores to put Falkirk ahead for the first time against their relegated visitors
There is a storied history to Falkirk and it does involve celebratory pitch invasions. ‘It is one of my earliest football memories,’ said Neil White. ‘It was 1986 and I was 10 and we were playing East Fife at Brockville. It was the last game of the season and we were going up.
‘I was in the main stand with my dad. That was rare because the whole family went to games and we were very seldom in the stand. My dad could not see a way for him to get on to the pitch so he lowered me halfway down and dropped me the rest. My ankles survived.
‘There was a flood of bodies, lots of bigger people rubbing me on the head. It was incredibly exciting and I remember making my way back to the main stand and looking up at my dad and seeing how happy he was to witness it.’
The White family’s connection with Falkirk remains strong. Michael White, Neil’s father, is club historian and both have a grasp of what the club means to individuals and the community.
‘I didn’t go on the park last night,’ said Neil. ‘I was there with my boy and my mum and dad. My dad’s knees were maybe not up to it.’
He was not surprised by the explosion of emotion. ‘That’s football. That is why we keep coming back. This game was the end of a redemption arc. Falkirk were soulless, hard to watch for a spell. Every single summer and even in January, the team changed. Managers were sacked. There was no connection between the fans and the team.
Calvin Miller has an inflatable trophy on hand for immediate celebrations on the final whistle
‘McGlynn has stuck by his team for two years. There is a clear identity, not just in playing style, but an identifiable connection with the town. That is where the emotion comes from. The players feel they know us and we know them.’
Indeed, as Friday night turned to Saturday morning, the players entered the fans’ bar at the Kevin McAllister stand. Old and young supporters embraced their heroes. These scenes were taking place just yards from where the ultras had loudly enhanced a wonderful atmosphere.
‘This is my town and this is my club,’ one of those youngsters told me. ‘I live for this every week. It’s obviously great on nights like this but we are all together, win or lose.’
Michael White, at 78, is a Bairn, like the teenager. But his experience allows him to place Friday night’s events in a context.
‘It brought joy for a night and is important because many people are enduring tough times,’ he said. ‘The golden era for the club was just before the First World War when there was a thriving iron industry and the coal fields. Look at it now.
‘Grangemouth is a good example of a town on its knees. Losing the refinery was the final straw.’ He praised the club for its ability to connect with the fans and added: ‘For anyone under 50, this is the undoubted highlight of their life as a fan.’
Scott Arfield is looking ahead to a fairytale season in the top flight with his boyhood club
And for him? ‘Absolutely euphoric.’
The last word must go to McGlynn, who has led his tribe into the promised land. Falkirk stumbled in recent weeks, so did the last-day tension make it all the sweeter?
‘In some sadistic way, perhaps,’ he said. ‘We put everyone through the mill though. We created a lot of hurt by dropping points. The guys have been hurting, we have all been hurting, but it means we savour tonight even more so.’
It was the witching hour by the time this correspondent headed for home. The shouts of triumph, the thumping of music lay in my wake, a reminder that dreams can be lived, that memories can be made. These do not deny reality but can offer a comfort against its sometimes baleful blows.
