AlwaysAPar

It’s alright we got our mate Joe cardle to do the same to peterhead. Now we can all celebrate in here we’re good

Well you’re half way there anyway

Strong lineups for Spartans and Brechin in the promotion playoff today… good to see there’s no live reporting on this huge game too.

Airdrie lads we are doing all we can to give you momentum towards your noble quest of keeping Falkirk down here, now help us out and score will you!

That’s it confirmed then. On one hand, it’s the first time in over a decade that the team have actually surpassed my pre-season prediction. Fwiw I thought we had too much deadwood remaining, meaning Queens and/or Falkirk would be in a better position. Plenty of other teams looked menacing too meaning winning the division would be a real feat. However, in reality, it was a story of other teams’ failure as much as our own success. Queens clearly made a mistake in sticking with Gibson, which removed them from the title race from the very start. Although going by today they wouldn’t have been close anyway. Airdrie aren’t quite where they were last year. They play good football, but the inexperience of their management team is clear. Collapsing to a 4-3 defeat to us after dominating and being 3-0 up probably epitomises their season, as much as the 4 goal comeback epitomises ours. Falkirk, too, can play very well on their day but are ultimately soft and lacked consistency for most of the season. Montrose are miles off of where they were last season and clearly we all overestimated Kelty before a ball was kicked. The only teams to surpass expectations are probably Alloa and Edinburgh. But we’ve beat Alloa every time and took 10 points from Edinburgh, so again their form only worked in our favour as they took points from potential rivals. It was supposed to be a very competitive league that would take a very impressive team to win it. In reality, we spent parts of the season being the best team in the league by default. Simply being competent was enough. We’ve ended up limping over the line in what turned out to be a one-horse race. In short, we did what was required. But just looking at the league table, it’d be easy to mistake our competence for dominance. In saying that, everyone says “on their day, anyone can beat anyone in this league”. Well, everyone had 3 or 4 days to try beat us and only one of them managed it. I don’t think anyone, besides maybe those idiots who never leave the Falkirk echo chamber thread, can deny we deserve it. Not overly optimistic about next season until I see some solid recruitment. Striker(s) and a centre back definitely required. I’ve tried to be sensible here but if I can get carried away for one minute I’ll say build the team around Matty Todd because the boy is a star. Surely the best player to come from the Fife Elite since it was formed. Anyway we have all summer to worry about signings. We got out of this shitty league, hopefully never to return. Job done.

Back to doom and gloom queens fans. The whole “a draw is decent but hopefully we win” patter doesn’t suit you. Your team is fucking shite

This must be the first match thread I’ve ever seen where queens fans aren’t united in predicting their team to get pumped. Even last season they had no faith they wouldn’t get outdone by Grant and Hughes. Their new manager must clearly be a miracle worker to have instilled this reserved optimism down there!

Just googled Shaun Byrne and he’s 30 years old! I distinctly remember him making his debut as a teen against rovers ffs. I’m feeling very old now but get him home

Weird they’re so buzzing about only drawing with a team who have inferior players and a worse manager than them

Fair play Falkirk, see what can happen when you take shots on target! But how many passes were in the build up to the equaliser? Not too bad for a team that only plays ugly football. We were pretty shite again but if you can’t beat us in 4 attempts then there’s not really any excuses left.

Can’t see this getting any better if/when promotion is confirmed. Crawling to the finish line now

I distinctly remember the last time we were in the same group, hearing a story about how the Spanish king wasn’t even told about Scotland. “Czech Republic and a bunch of small teams” he was told. I remember Stuart and Tam discussing whether the anecdote was fair. This time around, Rodri is an expert on our ‘style of play’, their media is obsessed with our ‘boos from the stands’ and their new centre back has even spent a few days thinking about the length of grass at hampden. Fernando Llorente scored the winner the last time Spain came to hampden for the 3-2. He celebrated by pretending to wipe sweat from his forehead, insinuating Spain had escaped the embarrassment of failing to beat such diddies. Llorente was on post-match coverage for Spanish tv for this game, and I’ll say this, the smug p***k was sweating for real this time. They certainly know who we are now!

Falkirk fans were all over this thread pre-match raving about how good they were and now the few remaining are bleating about referee decisions. They entered like a lion to the Colosseum and have been reduced to a kitten begging for food. We have truly broken the soul of this pathetic little club, wonderful to see.

Gotta hand it to Falkirk though. After the 2nd meeting they were poor and 7 points behind. Since then, they have found a solid, consistent shape. They’ve signed outstanding players for this level giving them the best starting line-ups they have had in years and a very strong bench to mix things up. While we’ve not been at our best, they ended their Airdrie hoodoo and went on an incredible run of form - putting teams to the sword and growing a backbone not seen in a Falkirk side for a long time. The progress McGlynn has made in this side in the past couple of months has been remarkable! And after the 3rd meeting they are 8 points behind

Pretty sure if they drop 3 more points than us before we next meet, a win there would win us the league

Surprised at the billy big baws in this thread. How anyone can have sat through watching either side for the past couple of years and maintained optimism and arrogance is beyond me

All these fans of other clubs it feels like a big Scottish football reunion in here. Everyone has come out to the smoking area to watch the two family disappointments have a scrap. So long as we bust Falkirk’s nose and send him down the steps tho cos we’ll be damned if we’re gonna be the disappointment.

So we’ve learned that “Airdrie are unstoppable at home except that one fluke against Edinburgh” actually means “Airdrie are unstoppable at home until they face any promotion-chasing team and then they utterly shit the bed”

What a fucking result! I’m sure the Airdrie fans who claimed their first half dominance was entirely because of their amazing play and unrelated to our own failings, will be right along to praise our outstanding comeback that was nothing at all to do with their own poor tactics and substitutions… Seriously tho we’ve shipped 6 points to Clyde and Peterhead as we can’t break teams down. Literally all airdrie had to do was sit back and the game was theirs. And breathe!

If you were getting hammered by a team behind you in the league, would you simply say that you just can’t be good enough to compete with such a team or would you be more likely to question what the hell your own team is playing at for allowing this to happen?

That’s pretty much our first team ffs this is definitely personal for McPake

I moved to Belfast a few years ago and I have been asked the “who’s your big team though” with the sinister undertones a few times. Explaining to these people that I despise both clubs and also could not give a f**k about any and every iteration of Christianity is not easy. If Stuart and Tam’s target audience is NI then fair play for their somewhat edgy humour. But I imagine the truth is that this patter, like other aspects of the show, is merely a fossilised relic of yer da talk from west coast pubs that belongs firmly ‘back in the day’.

Is that 6 away wins in the league now this season? Yes we’ve dropped a level but our previous 6 wins on the road came over a period of about 4 years, so we certainly shouldn’t take this ability to win ugly away from home for granted

What the hell happened here

I know mate. I fucking wish we were half way down the league, getting one shot on target while losing a big game at home. But you can’t turn on your club, we’re just gonna have to keep paying for this shite hoping we get to that level one day