Falkirk

Falkirk Football Club are a Scottish football team playing in the Scottish Premier League after winning promotion from the Scottish First Division in season 2004/05.
Contents

1 Club history
2 Situations of promotion and relegation
3 Managers
4 Famous players
5 Current squad (season 2006-2007)
6 Club honours
7 External links

Club history

The club’s date of formation is a point of much contention, although most accounts point to the year 1876 as the probable starting point, and this is the date used by the club and its fans as the formation date. The club quickly developed the nickname “The Bairns”, a Scots word meaning child, son or daughter. This was in homage to an ancient Falkirk Burgh motto, “Better meddle wi’ the deil [devil] than the Bairns O’ Falkirk.” In the First World War, a tank adopted as a wartime mascot by the people of the town was also named “The Bairn” in honour of this.

Falkirk’s traditional home colours are a dark navy blue top and white shorts. Their away colours usually alternate between red or white, but for the 2006-2007 season the away colours are yellow with a navy blue trim. The club also have a light blue strip, again with a navy trim, which is billed as a “cup strip”.

Their current shirt sponsor is Central Demolitions. Recent sponsors have included Budweiser Budvar, John R Weir Mercedes Group and Beazer Homes.

In the club’s early years, a wide number of pitches and stadia were used. In 1885, the site of Brockville Park in Falkirk was leased, and there the club remained until the last day of the 2002/2003 season. Due to Brockville’s central location in the town, and the SPL’s stringent stadium requirements, the dilapidated Brockville site, home of Falkirk for over 100 years, was no longer suitable for the club’s ambitions. For season 2003-04, the club groundshared with Stenhousemuir at Ochilview stadium on the outskirts of the town. At the start of season 2004-05 they moved into their new purpose built stadium which meets SPL criteria.

The old Brockville ground was demolished in 2003/2004 and the land is now home to a branch of the Morrisons supermarket, which has several items of Falkirk F.C. memorobilia on site, including an old turnstyle from the old ground.

The fans recently voted Kevin McAllister their player of the millennium, although other great players from the past include Alex Parker, the club’s most capped player, John White, Simon Stainrod, who played for a host of clubs in England, Richard Cadette, Scott Sloan and Crawford Baptie.

The current manager is John “Yogi” Hughes, who had a distinguished career as a central defender with Falkirk before moving onto Glasgow Celtic and Hibernian FC.

Situations of promotion and relegation

There were two occasions in which Falkirk were denied promotion to the S.P.L. The first arose at the end of the 1999/2000 season, when the S.P.L was due to expand to 12 teams. The team that finished bottom of the S.P.L (Aberdeen) was due to compete in a three-way play-off against the teams that finished 2nd and 3rd in the First Division (Dunfermline and Falkirk respectively), with 2 of the 3 teams earning entry to the S.P.L for season 2000/01. Falkirk’s Brockville ground did not meet the SPL requirements so they applied to groundshare at Murrayfield. This was rejected by the SPL who in 2004 accepted an identical groundsharing bid at Murrayfield from Hearts (a team who were already S.P.L members). The play-off system was hence abandoned and Aberdeen and Dunfermline were allowed into the SPL for the following season.

In the 2001/2002 season, Falkirk finished 9th in the 1st Division, which would have led to them being relegated to the 2nd Division,but were allowed to stay up due to the dimise of Airdrieonians, which folded on the last day of that season.

The following season there had been talk of a new stadium for Falkirk, however, nothing materialized. Falkirk won the First Division in the 2002/03 season, with their ground still not meeting the stringent S.P.L stadia requirements. A vote to decide whether or not Falkirk should be allowed to play at New Broomfield (an SPL compliant stadium also home to Airdrie United) was held, and the S.P.L chairmen voted against them being allowed into the league, thus saving Motherwell from relegation.

The very next season the SPL changed the conditions allowing clubs entry. The required size of stadium was reduced from 10,000 to 6,000. Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who had been ground sharing with Aberdeen – hundreds of miles away finally benefitted from this change in attitude. This also paved the way for Falkirk to enter the SPL on condition that they win the First Division title.

Falkirk finally won promotion to the Scottish Premier League on April 9, 2005 after a 1-0 win over Ross County F.C.. Falkirk now play in Scotland’s top flight as their new stadium meets SPL criteria.

The club finished in 10th place at the end of their first season in the SPL, ahead of Dunfermline Athletic (11th place) and Livingston (12th place).

Managers

This is a partial list of managers, from 1983 only.

Scotland Alex Totten (1983-?)
Scotland G Abel ( – )
Scotland Billy Lamont ( – )
Scotland Dave Clarke ( – )
Scotland Jim Duffy ( – )
Scotland Wille Lamont (?-1990)
Scotland Jim Jefferies (1990-1995)
Scotland John Lambie (1995-1996)
Scotland Eamonn Bannon (1996)
Scotland Alex Totten (1996-2002)
Scotland Ian McCall (2002-2003)
Scotland John Hughes & Republic of Ireland Owen Coyle (Joint) (2003-2003)
Scotland John Hughes (2003-present)

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