Falkirk F.C Confirmed As Scottish Championship Winners!

A look at how Championship winners have fared following promotion

With this evening’s 3-1 victory over Hamilton, Falkirk have FINALLY been confirmed as Scottish Championship winners. The Bairns will be rewarded with automatic promotion to the Scottish Premiership, ending their 15-year hiatus from the top flight, following their relegation from the SPL with 31 points in 2010.

It’s the fourth time Falkirk have won their division this century - including the infamous 2003 First Division title win which resulted in the bairns becoming the first team in history not to gain automatic promotion after winning the second tier since automatic promotion was introduced. This was due to the SPL rules at the time demanding 10,000 capacity all-seater stadium for all top tier clubs; rules which were widely criticised and later amended down to a requirement of 6,000 seats.

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THE TROPHY

The Scottish Championship trophy awarded to Falkirk F.C tonight by SPFL CEO Neil Doncaster is the original trophy used in the Scottish top flight for 50 years. After the creation of Scottish League Football in 1890/91, clubs weren’t awarded a trophy. Instead, the players were given medals and the club received a flag to fly at their stadium - “we’ve won the league again, fly the flag”.

In 1947, William McAndrew - the Secretary of the SFL for 48 years - retired and left behind two mementos. This was two trophies, one for league division “A” and one for league Division “B”, which is how the top two tiers of Scottish Football were known at that time.

Excerpt from The (Dundee) Courier And Advertiser, Wednesday October 1, 1947

In 1948, Hibs became the first team to receive the League ‘A’ trophy, with the previous winners names from every season back to 1891 inscribed on the trophy - starting with the joint winners Rangers and Dumbarton. In 1891 the two teams at the top finished level on points and the league deciding playoff match was also tied at 2-2. Penalty shootouts had not yet been introduced and there were no more dates to play a replay, and so there were two winners of the inaugural league title.

The name of the champions continued to be inscribed on the trophy itself for the next decade until the 1959/60 season, when Heart of Midlothian became the last name to be engraved - as there was no more space. After that, the winning team had their name inscribed onto the base of the trophy up until 1998.

This was the last season of the original SFL, before 10 clubs broke away to form the new SPL, and so the original trophy was kept by the SFL and given to the winners of the second tier instead. Hibs were the first club to receive the trophy as second tier winners in 1999, a tradition which has now continued to the present day in the SPFL, after the SFL and SPL merged in 2013/14.

Hibs were the first team to receive this trophy as top flight winners in 1948, and then the first team to receive the trophy as second tier winners in 1999.

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FALKIRK ABSENCE ENDED

Since Scottish football expanded in 1975, moving away from just two leagues of 16 teams to a three tier 10-14-14 setup, there have been multiple teams that were relegated from the top tier, only to climb back up in subsequent seasons.

However since 1975, there are only NINE previously relegated top flight clubs that have yet to play in the Premiership since the creation of the SPFL in 2013 (including phoenix clubs such as Gretna 2008). Falkirk’s back-to-back promotions means that list reduces to eight teams - including Falkirk’s rivals Dunfermline: