The Falkirk FC Thread

[Hank von Hell]

6 hours ago, NUMBER 7 said:

It’s quite interesting when you talk to guys who know a bit about Irish Football, which we probably all underrate.  We have major investors with the thick end of nowt in the club. Dermott Desmond has just put 5 Million Euros into Shelbourne.  

Yes and Mark Campbell is about to buy Craggy Island United , build 6 hotels and an aqua park with a monorail linking them all and catapult them into the Champions League

[Rugster]

1 hour ago, Hank von Hell said:

Who puts out the cones and coaches the laddies at St Pats? Get him to send his CV to G Deans swiftish.    

Paddy Cregg I believe 

[Gaz]

2 hours ago, Hank von Hell said:

Yes and Mark Campbell is about to buy Craggy Island United , build 6 hotels and an aqua park with a monorail linking them all and catapult them into the Champions League

Craggy Island already have a team, it takes part in the All Priests Over 75 Indoor Football League. Big derby this weekend against Rugged Island.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

Fr Sensini is one to keep an eye on. Promising youngster (not 80 yet) and can climb two flights of stairs unaided.

[Harry Kinnear]

Craggy Island already have a team, it takes part in the All Priests Over 75 Indoor Football League. Big derby this weekend against Rugged Island.

Bet you if they played 10 man Raith they wouldn’t get pumped

[Harry Kinnear]

Fr Sensini is one to keep an eye on. Promising youngster (not 80 yet) and can climb two flights of stairs unaided.

Could be a January replacement for Brad McKay

[Gaz]

33 minutes ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

Fr Sensini is one to keep an eye on. Promising youngster (not 80 yet) and can climb two flights of stairs unaided.

Only needs one nun to help him out of a chair I'd heard.

[Gaz]

21 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Billy Little was before my time, but you can see him here, that dip in the late 70s when we were, er, in the same place we are now. 

For me, the worst manager(s) of my lifetime have been John Lambie, and the last three or four we've had. Everyone else can get a pass. 

My Dad started taking me when I was 3 so obviously can't remember much about the managers we had in the late 80s (born in '83) but for what it's worth:

Jefferies: Some absolutely brilliant football. Great times following them. PASS
Lambie: After the highs of Jefferies this was absolutely dreadful. FAIL
Bannon: I didn't remember him doing too badly. Wasn't he sacked because of some admin oversight that saw John Clarke play for too many clubs within a short space of time? FAIL
Totten: An absolute gentleman and gave us some great times. Unfortunate for him his last couple of years were marred by financial difficulties which gave us some poor times. PASS
McCall: The team he assembled was up there with the best I'd ever seen. Was devastated when he left. PASS
Hughes / Coyle: We still had McCall's team so kept playing some great football. PASS
Hughes: I was critical of Hughes a lot at his time here. His first season was a disaster but I don't blame him for that, sharing at Ochilview was grim and we didn't know until like July what league we were going to be playing in. At the time I felt that Latapy papered over some massive cracks and Hughes's stubbornness cost us a lot of points, but in hindsight my opinion of him has changed greatly. Brought us the most successful team of my lifetime. PASS
May: I still get angry over this. Hughes leaves, we have European football, are an established SPL team, recent cup final, recent 7th place finishes. Instead of advertising the job we give it to a youth coach who is hopelessly out his depth and blames results on not praying hard enough. Should have gone after about four games. FAIL
Pressley: Promised us we wouldn't get relegated, proceeded to get us relegated. FAIL
Holt: I can barely remember any of Holt's tenure. But he's a dick, so he gets a FAIL
Houston: Was the correct decision to punt him at the end but gave us some brilliant moments, took us to another cup final, had us playing some brilliant football and challenging for the Championship with tough, tough opposition. A shame how it ended but he gets a PASS
Hartley: Absolutely bizarre. Came in after a successful career, barely put a foot wrong his entire first season, appears to have went absolutely mad for about a month and gave us an absolutely dreadful team, then left, where he's resumed his successful career. I don't think we'll ever know the full story. FAIL
McKinnon: Football no better than under Hartley. Got us relegated. FAIL
Miller / McCracken: Got the job after beating a junior side. Took us to the top of the league because every other side was absolutely ganting. As soon as other sides became less ganting we got found out. FAIL
Holt: Still a dick. FAIL
Sheerin: A youth coach with no experience of managing a full time side. FAIL

[Ranaldo Bairn]

I'll extend it back a wee bit over my experiences;

(working backwards)

Lamont (2nd time): took Duffy's adventurous side and made us really stodgy and dull as the dressing room fell to bits. FAIL

Duffy: aged about 13 he took over a woeful side and introduced fast attacking football that was narrowly pipped to the title. Poor recruitment for season #2 and the Saltcoats debacle saw him depart PASS

Clarke: took over when we were struggling and introduced the 10-0-1 formation where Ken Eadie would score against Motherwell, and we'd hope to draw every single game 0-0 on a gluepot pitch. Kept us up in season 1, then relegated in season 2, then poor start to season 3 saw him bumped FAIL (narrowly)

Lamont (1st time): improved us constantly over 2 or 3 years ending in promotion to the top flight among #SCENES at Brockville. Made a valiant effort at staying up, and bowed out when it was clear we needed a FT boss. PASS

Abel (caretaker): rubbish FAIL

Totten (1st time): took us from the foot of the table to challenging at the top and jumping ship to old Rangers as assistant to Jock Wallace. PASS

Hagart: got us out the basement and stabilised us in the middle tier but ran out of steam and was let go. PASS (mostly)

 

[AL-FFC]

Hard to disagree with any of the manager assessments, the Bannon one if I remember right the Clarke admin f**k up was an excuse to get rid by Fulston, also if I mind correctly we were at the right end of the table but the football on display was turgid.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

3 minutes ago, AL-FFC said:

Hard to disagree with any of the manager assessments, the Bannon one if I remember right the Clarke admin f**k up was an excuse to get rid by Fulston, also if I mind correctly we were at the right end of the table but the football on display was turgid.

We were pretty much 3rd to 5th all season. Zero league based excitement, but an unbelievable cup run. Weird.

[Harry Kinnear]

Been watching the Bairns since early 70’s and best manager for me was Jefferies. In terms of watching great football and actually looking forward to a Saturday that era was fantastic. The support we used to carry away from home and the atmosphere at games was brilliant.

Apart from going into administration, Jefferies leaving us for Hearts was one of the lowest points for me as it really felt like the end of something special.

[Shadwell Dog]

Bit hard on Dave Clarke I'd say. Keeping us in the top flight back then considering the finances and squad we had was a minor miracle. Football wasn't great but still gave us that wonderful day at parkhead. 

Bannon couldn't win games despite having Chris waddle in the team that says it all to me.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

2 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

Bit hard on Dave Clarke I'd say. Keeping us in the top flight back then considering the finances and squad we had was a minor miracle. Football wasn't great but still gave us that wonderful day at parkhead. 

Bannon couldn't win games despite having Chris waddle in the team that says it all to me.

Yes, I did agonise (for a few seconds) over him.

Undoubtedly he had a successful first part-season, and signed legends like Marshall and Burgess. But the second season was awful and he made a hash of the start to life downstairs.

Blame @Gazand the binary options! 

[lanky_ffc]

21 hours ago, Grangemouth Bairn said:

It’s clearly financial doping but as long as they are being funded I think the FFP rules are very lenient now.

The SPFL doesn't have FFP rules. It would only come in to play if they qualified for Europe and even then it's loose change compared to a lot of teams.

Edited December 1, 2021 by lanky_ffc

[Johnny Tee]

A good assessment of managers going back to John Haggart. But probably the greatest faux pas a Falkirk board ever made, despite departing manager Willie Cunningham’s strong recommendation, was not to appoint Alex Ferguson as manager in 1973, but instead bring back John Prentice who proceeded to play the same kind of football that Paul Sheerin now attempts to employ. Both Prentice and Sheerin did/do not have the quality of players required to implement such a passing style. Prentice got the club relegated from the top flight and it took 12 years to get back there. Sheerin is taking the club on the road to nowhere and it will be a lot more than 12 years to return to the highest tier again. It’s hard to believe that 30 years ago we could attract the likes of Simon Stainrod who was taking the p**h out of SPL defenders, and scoring goals from the halfway line.

[TheScarf]

1 hour ago, lanky_ffc said:

The SPFL doesn't have FFP rules. It would only come in to play if they qualified for Europe and even then it's loose change compared to a lot of teams.

You would think they would've brought them in after Rangers died.

[Shadwell Dog]

50 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

You would think they would've brought them in after Rangers died.

No chance that would've meant sevco struggling even more to get back to the top. The authorities wouldn't want that to happen.

 

[Shadwell Dog]

Nobodys mentioned Gerry Collins who managed to make Lambie look decent.

[Johnny Tee]

And here’s Simon scoring a spectacular goal against Celtic in 1991. Brockville was rocking that afternoon