Every Bairn must have woken-up after yet another special Friday night recently and pinched themselves, following our tense cup win against Dundee United.

This team just keeps giving us the most remarkable memories.  Seven Invincibles started in that Cup quarter final game, alongside a recent “graduate” from the seventh tier, Scotland’s number one, and two loan players who look like they have massive futures.

Indeed, the squad just keeps on giving.  As one player, who came off the bench recently said, “How do you get into the Harlem Globetrotters?”

Reaching the semi-final and being on the brink of top-6 status is, however, massive for our club. The success and continued progress brought by John, Paul and Stephen’s squad has been achieved despite the financial disparities arising from consecutive promotions.

All of this has been achieved operating within a sustainable financial model in an era when large, often seven-figure losses are commonplace in Scottish football, bucking the trend of Championship winners and, now, bottom-half Premiership clubs running up deficits we can’t even dream of.

This board’s aim will always be to deliver the best possible playing budget, as long as it is sustainable and doesn’t risk the club’s future solvency.  Our supporters, and future generations, deserve no less.

We were therefore delighted to see the pre-contract agreement that will see Craig Sibbald return to the Bairns, as well as extensions to Nicky and Leon’s contracts.  Next season’s squad is already taking shape and we hope to see more exciting players join.

As we go to press, just shy of 7000 Bairns have bought tickets for the semi final against our rivals from across the Firth of Falkirk, or the River Kelpies, whatever we want to call it.  It has all the ingredients of a generationally important game for both clubs, with added spruce brought by our clubs’ familiarity with each other.  Let’s make it a day to remember for all the right reasons.

We saw what can happen when rivalries go wrong in another quarter final match, so let’s show the pride in our club and colours and make sure that football is the story that day.

Once more unto the breach, dear Bairns

Next season’s formidable challenge is obviously replacing the playing surface.

Despite the hardships faced by several other SPFL clubs, whose pitches became unplayable for weeks because of Scotland’s predictably wetter climate and are still poor to both the eye and the ball, the ban remains.

We won’t dwell on Bodo Glimt, but Scottish football keeps punching itself in the face then complaining when it hurts.

Bairns are aware that the club received a year’s grace before we have to instal a grass pitch and we reiterate our gratitude to the SPFL leadership.  That agreement included some acceleration of future SPFL prize money.

The club will therefore begin preparations in the coming months for the switch to grass. We will tender for the best delivery partners, with the aim of installing a high-quality hybrid pitch at the Falkirk Stadium in time for the beginning of season 2027/28.

We also need to make arrangements for new first team and Academy training facilities.

This will cost a total of around £1.5m.  The SPFL advances will cover around a third of that cost, so the club has to, at minimum, find the rest.

Building back better

To be clear: our ambition is to lay a high-quality surface and secure the best possible training facilities for our squads without adversely impacting the first-team budget or other critical parts of the club, like our Academy.

This is a high bar, but with creativity and determination, we can achieve this and strengthen our club long-term.

The club is considering a variety of funding options. These include commercial or institutional finance, though it is clear that appetite for lending to football clubs is low, and we must be careful not to saddle the club with too much debt.

We are talking to shareholders and others in the Falkirk family who may be willing to offer help, as well as discussing options for wider fundraising with the FSS and other fans’ groups.

Some funding will likely have to come from the club’s cash reserves, which we have only recently managed to begin to rebuild but which will benefit from this season’s outstanding league campaign and cup runs.

We will also have to consider a time-limited “pitch premium” on top of season ticket and match ticket prices to meet some of the shortfall, perhaps in a similar way we used previous seasons’ Manager’s Fund. In conjunction with specialist partners, we have been exploring the option of offering a season ticket credit option to supporters to help spread the cost.

What is clear is that it will take a team effort from everyone connected with the club.  No stone will be left un-turned and we invite all supporters to take the initiative both in fundraising towards the objective and contributing ideas to the Club.  Joining FSS is the single most effective step any fan can take to support our efforts (Euromillions aside!).

Being fan-owned brings the strength of an entire fan-base to bear when we face a challenge of this magnitude, though not a single “sugar daddy” owner who can underwrite this sudden cash requirement.

More detail will follow soon, but we wanted Falkirk fans to know that we are on the case and determined to do this well while making your club stronger in the process.

In addition, we continue to seek a minority investor to help us in developing the club’s sporting and physical infrastructure, ideally a party who brings more than simply finance to the table.  But we will not sell any part of the club on the cheap.  Falkirk fans have invested too much to allow that.

Farewell to a legend

Nights like the Quarter Final bring real joy, but also poignancy as 7000 Bairns bade farewell to one of our greatest ever players, John Markie.

A stalwart of the 1960s and 70s, John represented Falkirk over 450 times and was integral to the great Willie Cunningham side still revered by Bairns of a certain age, many of them the grandfathers referenced in the banner displayed by younger Bairns on Friday.

As we anoint new heroes, it is vital that we remember those of years gone by.  The club’s love and sympathy go out to John’s family and friends.

The run-in

As we write this, your Bairns sit sixth in the league, a Scottish Cup semi-final against Dunfermline in the diary, internationalists at all levels, packed stadiums singing their hearts out, and some of the best team performances any of us have seen from a Falkirk side.

And all on the eve of this club’s 150^th year.  It’s easy to get caught in the moment, and the moments keep racking-up.

Working together, rebuilding almost from scratch a fan-owned, fan-run, and fan-funded club, we’ve managed to drag ourselves back, near to the pinnacle of our greatest achievements of the first 149 years. The challenge now is to build further and sustain that success.

If the last two seasons were amongst the most memorable any Bairn has seen, then how will this end?

Let’s not jinx anything with rash predictions, but we dare to dream.

COYB.