Two Visits to Falkirk in the Space of Four Days (1965)

(first published in the match programme for St. Mirren v Celtic, 25^th August 2024)

When the League Cup tournament became the curtain-raiser for the season in 1949, the sectional fixtures were usually played to completion before the League engagements got underway on the fourth Saturday.

However, from 1958 onwards, the Cup matches were interrupted half way through to allow the first set of League fixtures to be scheduled, unusually on a Wednesday evening. Invariably, St. Mirren's first League fixture during that period was against one of their League Cup rivals and, as a result, they would therefore meet the same side twice in four days in the quest for different prizes.

Such was the situation in August 1965, when Saints travelled to Brockville for a League Cup tie against Falkirk on Saturday 21^st (winning 1-0) and returned there on Wednesday 25^th to open their League engagements for season 1965/66.

The Falkirk programme was well established and remained relatively unchanged from 1958 until 1970, consisting of eight pages and measuring 15cm by 22cm. It was printed blue on white matt paper throughout and featured an illustration of a player on the front cover above the match details. The programme contained a generous amount of reading material and advertising occupied only the equivalent of one page.

Separate programmes were produced for both matches between the Bairns and Saints, however, the proximity of the two fixtures meant that no fewer than five pages were duplicated across the two issues. Printing deadlines also probably accounted for the fact the midweek issue made no mention of the League Cup tie.

The covers of both issues against St. Mirren were among a very small handful of Falkirk programmes from that decade to feature the year on the cover, and thus would ease identification for future collectors.

"Now For the League", on the inside front page, perpetuated the seemingly endless debate about League reconstruction and also criticised the current unsatisfactory fixture arrangements.

On page three, the spotlight turned to the longest serving member of the Falkirk staff, groundsman Willie Struthers, who had arrived at Brockville in 1934. This was followed by a number of new items of local interest.

"To-Day's Line Up" featured the sides in the contemporary 2-3-5 formation. Both starting XIs showed minor formational and personnel changes from those who actually took the field. For Saints, Ian Riddell was replaced by Gerry Queen and for the Bairns, Fulton and McKinney deputised for Lourie and Gourlay. Below this, a piece on the visitors from Paisley mentioned the arrival of new Manager Doug Millward and the recent half time exhibition of ball skills by Brazilian Fernando Azevedo, who was on trial at Paisley.

Page six contained the only photographic content, featuring Hunter of Falkirk and St. Mirren's Redpath and the opposite page listed the home side's signed players for the coming season.

The issue was completed by a Half-Time Scoreboard of the League matches to be played that evening, together with the corresponding Reserve match between the sides at Love Street.

The threepenny programme is quite readily available nowadays for a reasonable price.

A crowd of 3,398 assembled at Brockville for the second time in four days and saw the home side launch into the attack from the start. Johnny Graham passed up a simple chance following a slip by "Cockles" Wilson and then Pat Liney tipped a John Hunter shot over the bar.

However, to everyone's surprise, Saints scored after half an hour through Dave Mitchell (not Billy Faulds, as most newspapers reported), when he latched onto a Bobby Adamson pass to smash a shot beyond home 'keeper Willie Whigham, a lead that the visitors held until the interval.

Falkirk got the perfect response three minutes into the second period when Billy Fulton headed home from a Graham corner.

Saints immediately fought back, and Whigham had to pull off saves from Faulds and Gerry Queen, but tragedy struck the visitors in the 56^th minute. Graham intercepted a short back pass from Jake Young intended for Liney and set up Sammy Wilson to put the home side ahead.

St. Mirren's despair was to last only four minutes, as Tommy Robertson's defence splitting pass found Adamson in the inside-right position and his shot brought the sides level.

This seemed to knock the fight out of the Bairns, but the game boiled over shortly after when St. Mirren's Jim Kiernan was booked following a tussle with Falkirk's Jim Rowan.

With only six minutes remaining Adamson rounded off a perfect evening when he scored his second, and Saints' winning goal, to get the League challenge off to a flying start.