StuartA

Houston was a bigger deal than Stainrod as a Falkirk player for me. Stainrod was great, but it was glamour over substance.

My dad used to talk about Kenny Dawson as being the benchmark for any Falkirk player I watched when I was young, including Kevin McAllister. By all accounts, a magnificent player and one who served Falkirk from 1935 until 1951. A legend is a legend if a single fan thinks he is.

Scotrail emergency declared.

Unpopular opinion, but Hamilton might be daft to sack Rankin if they fail in the play offs. They’re far and away better than the 8 clubs underneath them and it’s difficult to see Arbroath being that strong. A whole lot of upheaval and expense otherwise.

Yep, we care and we keep turning up, no matter how bad things get.

His mum is.

It’s quite justified. The w****r.

The Accies supremo was telling everyone their budget at the first game at TFS. Can only guess the rest is boardroom/hospitality or agent talk. Makes sense to me - Cove have had a huge turnover. Odd for Hartley.

Some of their part timers are on double our full timers.

Yep, went fine. Interesting presentation from the SMISA guy - our fan ownership journey has a lot of similarities and we aren’t far away from them in that respect. Membership numbers still edging up - 885 I think I heard. Nearly at 25.2% shareholding. Lots of ideas for engaging young fans (working with JB) and fans overseas. Nigel confirmed we were on the third biggest budget in L1 this season. And mentioned a very frank video from the Morton finance guy which is worth watching.

The budget will be tight and we should manage our expectations. The reality is that we had probably the third largest budget in League 1 this year, with comfort room only from last year’s cup runs. We don’t have that this year. We do have increased crowds and commercial performance which mitigates, but I guess players will want a pay rise for being in a higher division. We know we get a couple of hundred k more league money but that varies greatly depending on performance. And we know we don’t have deep cash reserves so aren’t in the position to take a wild punt. Much will depend on ST sales, FSS and Patrons take up, and wider commercial and sponsorship. Reality of a fan owned club, but it also makes us lean and mean.

It’s only strange if you don’t rate Oliver, which McGlynn clearly does. He’s had him for a couple of years now so there’s no doubt about that. My (pound shop Pep) preference would be more resilience in the CH/DCM positions. We’ve been fortunate that we’ve had so few injuries but it’d only take a couple to really upset things. Similarly suspensions - tougher games will likely mean more bookings for the likes of Hendo.

I agree, but DA didn’t do too badly until their injuries kicked in. We’ll likely still have quite a tight squad, so how it’s constructed will be important. I hope the additional time bought by winning the league will help JMcG in terms of signings, but also gives the club more time to get extra cash in the door to boost the budget. Next season will be tighter, no matter what. Fans shouldn’t be afraid, but I really hope we don’t get overconfident.

Are you ready?

We should definitely be learning from DA’s experience. There are clear parallels. I do support Oliver’s signing, but understand the argument. I’m reeking in optimism bias just now but that could change quickly if we get half a dozen injuries.

I’m happy with Oliver signing. He’s scored a fair few goals for us, link-up play is good, and he’s clearly liked in the dressing room. Stats don’t measure stuff like squad harmony. If there are still two contracts on the table, I guess excluding the loan players, then that’s what, an intent to retain 14 of the championship winning side? Have to say, I like the way McGlynn is going about his business. He’ll have the last month of the season then entire close season to make the final 6 or 7 signings, unlike many of our opponents.

I want us to: - win the league before anyone other club in the country, amassing the most points, and by the largest margin - score the most goals, concede the fewest and have the top scorer - beat every L1 team home and away, having score at least 3 against each opponent at least once; and… - be invincible. But the league will do.

Most recent station to open in Scotland was £15m. Like the dead budgie…not going cheap. https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/transport-minister-opens-new-15m-railway-station-for-east-linton/#:~:text=Transport Minister Fiona Hyslop has,time in almost six decades.

I get the Schadenfreude, but this would be pretty bloody awful for us. We’ve just invested £hundreds of K in a new pitch which is better than nearly every grass pitch in the country. Especially Dundee’s. The cost of ripping it up within a couple of years, combined with the lost income and other buggerations would be massive. Rather than Raith, my ire would be focused completely on SPL protectionism. It’s deja vu all over again, the fkrs.

It’d be best to get rid of DU and Queen’s Park. That division is wide open.

Bottom line is, we were still the better side in every game recently despite not playing our best. If we’ve ridden our luck in a couple, then same applies in reverse to Annan when we were unlucky to drop points. Swings and roundabouts, nothing rose-tinted about that.

That’s fair enough. All I’m saying is Accies’ situation looks eerily similar to ours over past few years. Not having a dig btw.

We used to have that attitude which is part of the reason we spent years in this hell hole of a division. Once you recognise that other teams have a say in the matter and aren’t just an inconvenience, then the healing might begin.

That is a very fair point.

It says something when Falkirk fans think a poor performance is not steamrolling other teams. That was a decent Stirling side and we could easily have lost. Hamilton might struggle next week. To me, the last few weeks have shown how good a side we have. Losing Tom is massive, and we’ve managed to keep winning despite that and some rotation, which some folk hate. But it makes me quite proud that nearly all the squad are a part of it.