Falkirk put the wheels in motion

FALKIRK’S exploits in the mid-90s hinted at a rather salubrious future after 1995’s fifth-place finish in the Premier League and an appearance in the 1997 Scottish Cup final, but although the town’s famous wheel is now well and truly turning, the club’s own cogs have creaked since the turn of the century.
By The Newsroom
Published 1st Aug 2004, 01:00 BST

After the extensive pre-season preparations now favoured by most clubs, John Hughes’ side were relieved to finally begin their 2004/05 campaign yesterday at Somerset Park in the Bell’s Cup, but they did so still as a team with potential unfulfilled. This is largely a consequence of the club reaching the gates of heaven by winning the First Division in 2003 and the promotion place that comes with it, only to be told their name was not on the SPL bouncers’ list of favoured guests.

Brockville, with it’s nostalgic location tucked behind houses and shops and its floodlights peering between buildings on a winter’s night, has long been lamented as the reason for the stalling, some might say regression, at Falkirk because of its lack of 10,000 seats. But with the ramshackle ground now consigned to sepia-tinted memory banks and that ridiculous SPL rule having been relaxed to a more realistic 6000 seats, the surroundings are in place to permit top-flight football at the club’s long-awaited new ground.

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For John O’Neil, Premierleague veteran and Scotland international who, at the age of 33, is now a mainstay in Hughes’ side, it is a regret that the imaginatively-named Falkirk Stadium will not be christened by an SPL fixture this weekend. The former Hibs midfielder, whilst grateful to Stenhousemuir’s hospitality last season, cites the asperous surface at Ochilview as damaging to Falkirk’s promotion pursuit, as dropped points at their temporary home culminated in a fourth-place finish.

The structure off the field now coherent, the question is whether Falkirk have what is required on the park to take that elusive step into the SPL next May, one they last successfully lunged at 10 years ago.

"Definitely," is O’Neil’s unequivocal response. "Our squad is looking good and I’m convinced we are promotion material. I thought that last year too, but really playing at Ochilview wasn’t conducive to the type of football we like to play. The manager likes us to get the ball down and pass it, and the players he has brought in have all had that philosophy. But with the new stadium it’s all there for us.

"The difference in surface at Westfield [where the stadium is located] compared to Ochilview is like night and day, and I think we dropped points last season because we couldn’t play the game which suited us best. Maybe we should have adapted to the conditions and been a bit more direct, even lumped the odd high ball, but it’s not really our style and that comes from the manager."

Having seen his side struggle to bulge the net last season, both at Ochilview and on their travels, Hughes realised refreshing the attacking line was essential. Falkirk scored just 43 league goals in total, 24 less than champions Inverness and 21 fewer than runners-up Clyde, so Hughes has turned to former Rangers under-21 striker Darryl Duffy, a player with Champions League experience arriving on a free from Ibrox, and Andy Thomson, another who cost nothing from Partick Thistle.