05-05-2025
Scott Arfield is just one Falkirk hero but there's too many of them to thank for saving my club
15 years outside the top flight came to an end at last and this fan still doesn't know how to process what he felt on Friday night
It wasn't so long ago that a young Scott Arfield was at his own goalkeeper's throat in front of the south stand at the Falkirk Stadium.
This was years ago but the man's passion hasn't dimmed in his second spell as a Bairn.
On Friday night, with a 3-1 victory over Hamilton Accies, he achieved the thing he's been waiting for ever since.
But while you can be forgiven for thinking the homecoming hero is the main character of an epic story that's spanned 15 years and taken fans through every emotion on the spectrum, it isn't all about him.
It's about Brad Spencer, the vice captain and midfield general who played every single minute of the Championship-winning season.
It's about Tom Lang, who came out the other side of 10 months of injury torture just in time to help push it over the line.
It's about Paul Smith, John McGlynn 's long serving number two who suffered a heart attack in January but was out on the pitch after a win in Kirkcaldy to celebrate that very weekend.
It's about Aidan Nesbitt, the tireless midfielder who went from being a nailed-on starter to the fringes of the team when Arfield returned to the club on deadline day, but kept his head up and did his bit with his usual fervour every time it was asked of him.
I could go on.
You're not hard pushed to find a hero in the town of Falkirk these days. And Arfield is just one of them.
It's not all about him, but it is a little bit about him.
He jumped at the chance to get up the road when the opportunity presented itself and any questions over whether he still has it were answered within seconds of him pulling on a Falkirk shirt again.
He scored a hat-trick in his very first game back, and in the celebrations, he looked to the fans in the south and pointed upwards towards the Premiership. A smiling, swaggering message that said 'I'm not here to mess about; we're going up.'
It was in front of that very stand that it all started for him.
A formative Falkirk memory for this particular fan was of Arfield and his goalkeeper at each other's throats right there.
The keeper had had a go about Arfield's role in defending a set piece against Aberdeen. It escalated quickly; Darren Barr then had to pry them apart as it threatened to come to blows.
No-one knew it then but this was Falkirk at the very beginning of a decline that would take them a decade and a half to fully recover from.
It's not all been bad, with a couple of famous Scottish Cup journeys and a promotion close call or two along the way. But, until John McGlynn stepped in to fight the fire, the trend was only pointing downwards.
'The club was broken, we fixed it,' was the honest and accurate message from the 63-year-old on the night the Bairns sealed a second successive promotion and ensured they will be in the Premiership when they celebrate their 150th anniversary next year – an ambitious goal CEO Jamie Swinney set his sights on right at the beginning of the McGlynn era.
They've gone from five years in League One, and the brink of part-time football, back to the top table. And their startling rise from the deep has come about so quickly that fans are struggling to process it.
Being a football writer means I've had to give up my usual seat in that very stand behind the goals; you can't get into it without a season ticket these days.
I was sitting in the north stand, the one normally home only to the away fans but open to home supporters on days of high demand, when the final whistle blew on Falkirk's 15 years in the wilderness on Friday night.
When Calvin Miller's goal hit the back of the net, the decisive third which virtually made sure of the trophy, I didn't celebrate.
I froze, teared up, and gave my dad, losing his fight against a few tears of his own, a big cuddle. The only three things my body would let me do in that state of disbelief.
It's been a rough few years being a Falkirk fan. For this writer, it's been a football-supporting lifetime filled with tears caused by every imaginable emotion that might make a grown man cry.
But we're back.
And Scott Arfield is just one of the people we have to thank for it.
