Falkirk bin the banter years as man pivotal to Invincibility names every club who revelled in Bairns' pain

His fondest footballing memories as a Bairn were of following his grandpa to games home and away.

As a teen he’d board the bus from Grangemouth with his mates to bellow at Brockville. Yet when Falkirk called in 2021 asking him to swap the chief exec reins at Stenhousemuir for theirs, Jamie Swinney said no. Seeing John McGlynn’s side lift the League One trophy yesterday, having pulled off Invincible status, it was one of those days when he’s glad he changed his mind.

It also happened to be his fifth wedding anniversary. In fact, the day he married fellow Falkirk fan Natalie was the one they tumbled out of the Championship. There have been many days, in between relegation and redemption, when he has wondered what made him return to a club that made him redundant when ditching their youth academy. In December 2017, the 37-year-old learned via social media after a night spent out coaching that his job as head of youth and head of operations was gone, leaving “hundreds of kids upset”.

He’d be forgiven, then, for being hesitant when approached inside four years to take up the reins. Swinney said: “From the outside looking in, my first thoughts were: ‘The club are in an absolute mess.’ I’d been made redundant by them a few years earlier so had lost a bit of my love for the club. The fact the club had been in League One for a couple of seasons, their financial stability – there was a whole bunch of concerns. It took me about five meetings with then chairman Gary Deans to decide I was taking the job. In fact, I rejected it at one point because I was so concerned about where the club were. I was asking questions and not always getting the answers I would have liked. I came home and told Natalie: ‘I’m not going to take it.’”

But the old board had gone and, after another couple of weeks, a yes followed. He said: “If I didn’t go in I could be asking myself forever more: ‘What if I had?’” Cue a sixth-placed finish, a board Q&A with fans going viral that made those watching wince, board resignations en masse, dugout changes and a £1.2million loss.

Swinney said: “That first nine months was absolutely crazy and without a doubt left me seriously questioning if I’d made the right decision or not. I became a dad in the February of that year at a point when your job is an absolute disaster. Being a dad is great, I must add, but I’d never want to go through that nine months again. The first year we would have run out of money in January of the 2021-22 season. Only the patrons’ investment effectively got us to the end of the season.

“The second year we would have run out of money in February but a Scottish Cup run allowed us to get to the end of the season. This year we used every penny of what we made in the Cup plus increased our revenue in every avenue to get us to a point of being able to have a full-time squad. And it was win or bust, it’s as straightforward as that. We would have spent every penny we had so we had to go up. Beyond this season there were no more shares to buy, no more investment, there was unlikely to have been a cup run.

“We would have been part-time next year – it was as stark as that. I’ve never felt as much pressure in my whole life as I have in these last eight or nine months. That night, walking out of Airdrie (after a 6-2 play-off semi-final first-leg play-off loss last year) I have never felt as low in football in my whole life. I genuinely felt ill. Then you have a whole summer of thinking: ‘If this doesn’t happen this year, the club are part-time.’

“I probably would not be in a job either – the reality is the club would have had to make cuts. We had one year to save the club as we know it because the minute you go part-time you might end up never coming back. You sell fewer season tickets, fewer people come to watch. I remember saying to Natalie when I took the job: ‘I think I’ve two years to get out of this league or I will not have a job.’

“In the end I got three years thanks to the Cup run. The pressure that’s been on this club to succeed is just huge. I would compare it to the same pressure Celtic and Rangers are under on the basis they have to win the league every year. This was a must-win-the-league year for us”

For profitability purposes, yes, but pride too. Swinney said: “Banter years is a term used in Scottish football and it is normally used about other clubs.

“It’s safe to say we have had our banter years. They were tough and fans of lots of different clubs enjoyed them.

“Not just Dunfermline fans but Morton fans, Airdrie fans, Hibs fans... the number of different fans you have seen laughing at Falkirk over these years has been scary. To be fair, they had good reason because not only were we in League One but some of the things that were going on in the club a few years ago were embarrassing.

“I’d like to think our banter years are over and we’re back to being a good football club again, well run, well managed, professional and hopefully successful.”

Swinney was not sitting in a cushy boardroom when Falkirk’s title glory was confirmed in March by Hamilton’s result before kick-off. He was slap bang in the middle of fans jumping about in the Golf Inn in Montrose, drinking it in before walking among them to Links Park to take in a 7-1 party.

"I am now,” he said on whether he’s glad he changed tack back in 2021. “I would have struggled to say that at the end of last season after Airdrie, I would have struggled to say that after the first season.

“But we have actually enjoyed such an amazing season – brilliant crowds, the party at Montrose, you can’t not enjoy it. Having those conversations with Falkirk before I took the job and looking at where the club were, eventually you back yourself My grandad took me home and away as a kid, he passed away when I was a teenager. If I can make this a success, make him proud – give the fans a club to be proud of again – whatever happens in the rest of my career, I will just be delighted I did that. I restored a bit of pride in the club and got us back to something that resembled where they should be.”