The season starts with Motherwell being nervy about the prospect of relegation. In administration and with a small and youthful squad, things looked bleak. However, the SPL rules state that only teams with first priority on a 10,000 seat stadium can be promoted. The First Division looks to be a two horse race between St Johnstone – who have a stadium – and Falkirk, who do not.
St Johnstone got off to an appalling start to the league and despite a good recovery, they could not catch Falkirk at the top of the table. We fought hard at the bottom of the league but we eventually finished well adrift at the bottom. By rights, we should have been safe then but Falkirk planned to contest the SPL’s decision not to let them up. Their actual claim to promotion was tenuous but a well ran media campaign orchestrated by Campbell Christie kept the issue alive. 
The vote, which went against Falkirk on The 23rd of May, should have been the end of the matter but Falkirk continued to fight. Quite how or why they expected the decision to be over-turned is unclear. The evidence available through the media suggests that they are not SPL compliant and the SPL clubs – who saw all the evidence – were also not convinced that they had met the criteria.
However, an SFA appeal hearing last week decided that Falkirk did have grounds to contest the decision and a full hearing will now take place tomorrow. The exact grounds have not been announced but the SPL is adamant that this appeal is about whether they acted constitutionally rather than a review of Falkirk’s case. Whether this means Falkirk can be promoted tomorrow or whether they will just be entitled to a re-trial is unclear.
Falkirk, Motherwell and the SPL will all have legal teams at the hearing who will present their case to the three man panel consisting of SFA President John McBeth, Vice President George Peat and Lord MacLean, the Court of Session judge who will be chairing the meeting.
The appeal will start at 6.30pm in Hampden and if we do not know our fate by shortly after 9.30pm in the evening, the hearing will have been adjourned to the following night.