On my way to Inverness in the car and passing some of the supporter’s buses, I starting thinking about my early years supporting Falkirk and getting to Falkirk matches in the 60’s. I travel now approx 120 Miles for each home game in the car; in the 60’s people travelled that far for holidays, even to Sunny Dunbar!

I first seen the Bairns in 1961, being beaten by Aberdeen 1-0 at Brockville and was not impressed, in fact I wanted to support Aberdeen after the match!

So why did I end up supporting Falkirk, well my Mum’s side were all Bairn supporters, my Uncle in fact had also played for the team, but my Fathers side were Jambo’s. At school most people supported the Old Firm i.e. they seem to win more than they lost, well not much change there! In fact two of my best pals used to leave Grangemouth in the Rangers supporters buses every week and my other pal, you guessed it the Grangemouth Celtic bus!

Well to support Falkirk way from home in these days, you had to look in the Falkirk Herald on the Friday, check what times the bus or buses, would leave and of course the price! This meant getting up to the Falkirk bus station from Grangemouth, the actual bus stand position is situated where the main Tesco is now located, we would stand and wait in the rain, snow, cannot remember sunshine and see how may supporters would turn up to make up a bus i.e. fill it! We always seemed to make enough for one single Decker bus, but Alexander’s would only run the other buses if they had sufficient numbers, or if they had put on a double Decker, then we then all knew, we would be going to the match. I can remember times not getting on the bus because of lack of numbers and also on route listening to hear on the radio if the match was still on!

I can only say the characters who were on the buses, especially Big Hank, the other lads from the Bog and the people who I made friends with in those days, Willie B, George M, Harry P, I Cummings, G Halliday, made supporting Falkirk a pleasure. In those days a trip to Paisley was not on duel carriageway, but single roads, through the centre of Glasgow, it seemed to take an eternity to get there.

We were always struggling in the league in those days, changing Managers and rare win away from home, did not happen too much, but when it did the atmosphere on the bus was great. When we arrived back at Falkirk, my day, good be made much better if the bus had to go back to the Grangemouth depot, I had saved my fare back from Falkirk!

So supporting Falkirk in the 60’s was not all glory, but my abiding memory was leaving Grangemouth Station on a football special to Greenock for a Scottish cup-tie. Pulling into Falkirk and seeing a swarm of people on the platform, who also wanted on the same train and they did, Health and Safety was not invented then!

The train was rocking on the long trip in the Diesel train to Greenock and we thought we could beat a really good Morton side as we did have a good team, but if my memory serves me right we were 3-0 down after 35 Minutes, so long trip home in a crowded train.
I also remember later some other football specials in the 70’s to Cowdenbeath and Berwick, when was the last time we had a football special from Falkirk!

So supporting Falkirk was not easy as a youngster and that’s why, when Falkirk was away at Aberdeen or similar longer journeys, I would go along to see the Shire with may other Falkirk Supporters. I can remember being in the crowd of 10,000 for the top of the table clash with Morton and Shire; I think it was 1963, when they were promoted to the old first division. As Brockville is no more, I hope that I can attend one last match at the Shire ground, as my memories of the many ground I visited are fast disappearing.

So the next time you are dual carriageway in good buses and cars, remember all who travelled to support the team without any luxuries, but did it to support the Team, not always for glory, but for the love to see the team home or away.