The Falkirk FC Thread

[roman_bairn]

Because he's a long line of  managers that thought they were better than they were, fecked off and did nothing but fail. He's pretty much tried to rewrite his managerial career in order to get the Scotland job. He never stopped talking about how he was using Falkirk to move on with his career. That went well.

Yes, I can remember him touting himself down South when he was our manager.

I also remember when he was playing for Ayr United about to re-sign for us as a player-coach and the two teams were due to meet at Somerset park many years ago. He was coming out in the tabloids with how much he loved Falkirk and how he could never want to score against us so he would not come up for corners. If I was an Ayr fan, player or manager I think I would have been telling him where to go...

 

[Rugster]

I love Yogi

[Hughsie]

The most successful Falkirk manager of all time.

Embarassing the way some of our supporters talk about him. 

Edited February 15, 2018 by Hughsie

[MrDust]

1 hour ago, DeeBairn said:

Because he's a long line of  managers that thought they were better than they were, fecked off and did nothing but fail. He's pretty much tried to rewrite his managerial career in order to get the Scotland job. He never stopped talking about how he was using Falkirk to move on with his career. That went well.

Top 6 finishes with Inverness and won the Scottish cup, I wouldn't judge that as failure.

His biggest failure now is he thinks he knows it all and the end of his ict career and Raith, he gave the impression he was bigger than the club and that never goes down well no matter the level.

I said when he left that I wouldn't be surprised if he would be back one day manager again, stranger things have happened

 

 

 

[roman_bairn]

The most successful Falkirk manager of all time.
Embarassing the way some of our supporters talk about him. 

Really, that’s why I asked the question. He was successful, but many will argue that he also spent significantly.
On a lower scale, the situation with Houston is somewhat the same. The season before last we picked up 70 points and lost just four games in a league with Rangers and Hibs. Yet Houstie appears to be seen as a clown because his limited success came to an end, and many of those players are now perceived as wholly sub standard. If that’s true surely it can also be argued that he managed to get something more out of an average team?

[AGPar]

3 hours ago, roman_bairn said:

Funny, isn’t it, how hostile so many of us have become towards Hughes?

He was a good servant to us as a player, and we also had one of the most successful periods under him as a manager.

Must admit he has a tendency to rile me too from time to time.

However, what is it that’s made him so disliked amongst our support? Arrogance, misuse of cash on certain players or the 2015 Cup final?

Cue the response of ‘because he’s a f*****g halfwit’ or worse...

Signing Kevin McBride and playing him every week

Signing Roman Wallner and never playing him.

Didn't like the style of play, deadly dull.

Along with the Tent Salesman, spending the club to the very blink of oblivion, from which we have never recovered, and openly boasting about doing so.

Whoring and touting himself around for any job going whilst being under contract to FFC.

Developing a monstrous ego and believing himself to be far too big for the club.

Hughes is a thoroughly nasty and unpleasant individual, to which plenty of people who worked at the club, especially in the latter years, will testify. 

His utter car crash at Raith, and recent desperate attempts to talk his way into jobs he has not a hope in hell of getting, show he has not changed. He never will.

Fortunately he'll never darken our door again, next stop EEP when they eventually empty Clueless Johnston

 

[roman_bairn]

Signing Kevin McBride and playing him every week
Signing Roman Wallner and never playing him.
Didn't like the style of play, deadly dull.
Along with the Tent Salesman, spending the club to the very blink of oblivion, from which we have never recovered, and openly boasting about doing so.
Whoring and touting himself around for any job going whilst being under contract to FFC.
Developing a monstrous ego and believing himself to be far too big for the club.
Hughes is a thoroughly nasty and unpleasant individual, to which plenty of people who worked at the club, especially in the latter years, will testify. 
His utter car crash at Raith, and recent desperate attempts to talk his way into jobs he has not a hope in hell of getting, show he has not changed. He never will.
Fortunately he'll never darken our door again, next stop EEP when they eventually empty Clueless Johnston
 

Dull football?
My recollection was that we were all over the media for the quality of play and opponents feared that we would pass them off the park?

[Gaz]

1 hour ago, roman_bairn said:

Dull football?
My recollection was that we were all over the media for the quality of play and opponents feared that we would pass them off the park?

I've mellowed my retrospective opinion to Hughes considerably over the past few years, but this was largely a myth put forward by a media who saw us play once or twice per sesason. For a good chunk of Hughes' time as manager we were a dull side to watch, and so heavily reliant on a 67-year-old chain smoker that any time he didn't play we were abject.

Look at his record:

First season: Ochilview. I can't fault him much for this, it wasn't his fault that he didn't know what league we'd be playing in until a couple of weeks before the season.

Second season: Promotion. First half of the season was excellent. Second half, we signed Alan Kernaghan to play alongside any two out of Hughes, Campbell, Sharp and James and played hoofball for four months.

Third season: Finished 10th. Didn't win a home game until May. Took just 9 points from home games all season. I appreciate the aim of that season was just to survive, but I'm answering specifically about your comments about "quality of play" and "passing opponents off the park".

Fourth season: Finished 7th. A great season.

Fifth season: Finished 7th. Again, a great season.

Sixth season: Finished 10th. After inexplicably deciding that 7th wasn't good enough for a club like Falkirk, Hughes and the BOD got swept up in pushing for 'the next level' and gave him a king's ransom which he then utterly wasted on his dross mates like McNamara, McCann, BoB. Should have been relegated that season, we were comfortably as bad as ICT and only Higdon's sizeable backside kept us up. The cup final run masked how terrible we were. Hughes knew what he'd done and got the hell out of dodge before we appointed the hapless May who took us down.

By my standards, that's two-and-a-half good seasons out of six where you could put forward an argument for the quality of our play.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Gaz

[Shadwell Dog]

13 hours ago, roman_bairn said:

Yes, I can remember him touting himself down South when he was our manager.

I also remember when he was playing for Ayr United about to re-sign for us as a player-coach and the two teams were due to meet at Somerset park many years ago. He was coming out in the tabloids with how much he loved Falkirk and how he could never want to score against us so he would not come up for corners. If I was an Ayr fan, player or manager I think I would have been telling him where to go...

 

He didnae give a feck when he scored the winner with a header against us for the tattie munchers.

[Shadwell Dog]

11 hours ago, roman_bairn said:

Really, that’s why I asked the question. He was successful, but many will argue that he also spent significantly.
On a lower scale, the situation with Houston is somewhat the same. The season before last we picked up 70 points and lost just four games in a league with Rangers and Hibs. Yet Houstie appears to be seen as a clown because his limited success came to an end, and many of those players are now perceived as wholly sub standard. If that’s true surely it can also be argued that he managed to get something more out of an average team?

Houston was okay when he had someone else's signings as the majority of his team.  His own recruitment record though was utterly dire.

[DeeBairn]

He jumped before we burned, he had a good season at ICT and jumped before that ended. He sees their relegation as a sign that he was awesome. Everyone else sees it as a charlatan getting out whilst the going was good. One good season at Hibs, then the old "mutual consent" chat, 9 months at Livi then dumped them when Hartlepool came calling. relegated Hartlepool then got sacked.  Took someone elses squad to a League Cup win shortly after taking over, then jumped after the Scottish Cup final against us, almost as if he could see what was coming. If he was as good as many say he is, he wouldn't have ended up out of work for a full season, and then at Raith getting them relegated. He's a legend for that, right enough.

[roman_bairn]

I've mellowed my retrospective opinion to Hughes considerably over the past few years, but this was largely a myth put forward by a media who saw us play once or twice per sesason. For a good chunk of Hughes' time as manager we were a dull side to watch, and so heavily reliant on a 67-year-old chain smoker that any time he didn't play we were abject.
Look at his record:
First season: Ochilview. I can't fault him much for this, it wasn't his fault that he didn't know what league we'd be playing in until a couple of weeks before the season.
Second season: Promotion. First half of the season was excellent. Second half, we signed Alan Kernaghan to play alongside any two out of Hughes, Campbell, Sharp and James and played hoofball for four months.
Third season: Finished 10th. Didn't win a home game until May. Took just 9 points from home games all season. I appreciate the aim of that season was just to survive, but I'm answering specifically about your comments about "quality of play" and "passing opponents off the park".
Fourth season: Finished 7th. A great season.
Fifth season: Finished 7th. Again, a great season.
Sixth season: Finished 10th. After inexplicably deciding that 7th wasn't good enough for a club like Falkirk, Hughes and the BOD got swept up in pushing for 'the next level' and gave him a king's ransom which he then utterly wasted on his dross mates like McNamara, McCann, BoB. Should have been relegated that season, we were comfortably as bad as ICT and only Higdon's sizeable backside kept us up. The cup final run masked how terrible we were. Hughes knew what he'd done and got the hell out of dodge before we appointed the hapless May who took us down.
By my standards, that's two-and-a-half good seasons out of six where you could put forward an argument for the quality of our play.

Pretty sure it was the midfield of Latapy, Cregg, Craig seasons where the quality of play was being praised, Probably the two seasons where we finished seventh.
I probably agree with a lot of above but it does feel a bit unbalanced tbh. Almost dismissive of how good we were for some of that period and highly critical of those where we struggled.

[Gaz]

1 minute ago, roman_bairn said:

Pretty sure it was the midfield of Latapy, Cregg, Craig seasons where the quality of play was being praised, Probably the two seasons where we finished seventh.
I probably agree with a lot of above but it does feel a bit unbalanced tbh. Almost dismissive of how good we were for some of that period and highly critical of those where we struggled.

I don't really see how you can say I'm dismissive of how good we were for some of that period where I describe both our 7th place finishes as great seasons and say the first half of our promotion season we were excellent.

[roman_bairn]

He didnae give a feck when he scored the winner with a header against us for the tattie munchers.

Yep, he’s also in the past been quoted that Hibs and Celtic were his boyhood hero’s...

[gav-ffc]

3 minutes ago, roman_bairn said:

Pretty sure it was the midfield of Latapy, Cregg, Craig seasons where the quality of play was being praised, Probably the two seasons where we finished seventh.
I probably agree with a lot of above but it does feel a bit unbalanced tbh. Almost dismissive of how good we were for some of that period and highly critical of those where we struggled.

Cregg, Craig, Latapy, O’Donnell in the middle with Barr and Milne at the back. 

The season we lost out on top 6 away at Aberdeen was great, the 5-1 away to St Mirren,  front 3 of Barrett, Higdon and Pedro was unstoppable at times and had Higdon not got injured we would’ve been top 6 comfortably.

[roman_bairn]

I don't really see how you can say I'm dismissive of how good we were for some of that period where I describe both our 7th place finishes as great seasons and say the first half of our promotion season we were excellent.

Point taken.
I actually think that he did well for us overall so perhaps think that whilst there is much to be justifiably critical of, we don’t highlight much of the positives that he implemented either. He must have did something positive for us to finish seventh those two seasons for example..

[60`s bairn]

2 hours ago, Gaz said:

 

First season: Ochilview. I can't fault him much for this, it wasn't his fault that he didn't know what league we'd be playing in until a couple of weeks before the season.

 

I would agree with you and maybe go a bit further regarding that first season. Going into it, he had half a season under his belt doing the job along with Coyle. He lost nearly all of his best young players and we had no Brockville to play our home games. I for one thought he would be doing a fantastic job just to keep us in that league under those conditions and while it wasn`t pretty, we did survive and carried on upwards from there.

[MrDust]

3 hours ago, roman_bairn said:

Dull football?
My recollection was that we were all over the media for the quality of play and opponents feared that we would pass them off the park?

The same press/media that had Pressley as the messiah of football

21 minutes ago, 60`s bairn said:

I would agree with you and maybe go a bit further regarding that first season. Going into it, he had half a season under his belt doing the job along with Coyle. He lost nearly all of his best young players and we had no Brockville to play our home games. I for one thought he would be doing a fantastic job just to keep us in that league under those conditions and while it wasn`t pretty, we did survive and carried on upwards from there.

We were top of the league for a short short spell that season and had a decent budget, the likes of Oneil, Jason Lee, Latapy etc wouldn't have been on buttons. The main issue I had was the squad he left us at the tail end and after January leaving us playing Latapy as a striker as we only had Andy Rodgers as our only recognised striker and we all know their history.

Whereas following season we had Pedro, Thomson and Duffy to fill 2 places.

My main gripe with Hughes is how he took the players and management away from the fans, it took 3 seasons to get that back. The great escape v ICT was an epic day, the players tho were very stand offish in celebration, days gone by and now they'd have been players in stand with us.

His playing career with us will never be questioned, management usually ruins that in someway as returning players as manager and very rarely ends on a high....tho if we had beat Rangers in cup that day, I'm sure we all would've erased the bad.....football fans are fickle that way

[roman_bairn]

Are you genuinely saying that the football with Latapy in the team was not some of the best we ever witnessed at the club? At times I thought it was mini Barcelonaesque...

 

[Ranaldo Bairn]

3 hours ago, Shadwell Dog said:

He didnae give a feck when he scored the winner with a header against us for the tattie munchers.

Greenied for the sentiment, but tattie munchers, wrap that sevcoesque chat please.