SEMI VICTORY WAS A MATCH MADE IN KEVIN
Brown: McAllister ran show but Hearts made final
ON the surface, it looks straightforward enough.
Top-flight team beats plucky underdog by a couple of goals to take its expected place in the Scottish Cup Final.
On this occasion, 22 years ago, nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, bookies’ favourites Hearts did beat First Division Falkirk in front of 31,000 fans at Ibrox to book a place in the final against Rangers – they’d go on to win it – but few remember the struggle they had just to get there.
Billy Brown does though. He and Jim Jefferies were the managerial duo who had left Falkirk for Hearts and had the best seats in the house as one of their former players ran riot and threatened to kill their dream of leading the Jambos to Cup glory.
Falkirk winger Kevin McAllister might have been in the twilight of his career at 35 but that afternoon he rolled back the years with a display that still has ex-Hearts No.2 Brown drooling more than two decades on.
He recalled the game and said: “Kevin McAllister was fantastic that day. We scored early on through Stephane Adam and we all thought we were going to win it easily.
“But Falkirk were outstanding and McAllister gave as good a display as I’ve seen from a player.
“He completely demoralised Gary Naysmith who went on to become a really top player.
“Kevin gave Gary a roasting that day but he’d have destroyed any left-back the way he played.
“He scored a cracking goal into the top left-hand corner with about five minutes to go, to make it 1-1, and we thought we were in trouble because Falkirk had been by far the better team.
“But losing the goal kind of kicked us into action and we scored the two late goals through Stephane and Neil McCann right at the death. The good thing about our team that season was when we really needed to pull something out of the bag, we did.
“To be honest, though, Falkirk didn’t deserve to lose.
“They played really well and we didn’t perform on the day. They must have been sick to have lost it. They had former Hearts players in Neil Berry and Scott Crabbe – boys who could handle the occasion and they did handle it.
“My main memory is McAllister’s performance. It’s not often you win a semi-final but the thing that stands out is how well a player in the other team played.
“He always had that in his locker but to play the way he did at 35 – it was incredible. “Jim Jefferies and I took him to Falkirk. We signed him from Chelsea and imagine Falkirk getting a player from Chelsea! We got Tommy McQueen from West Ham. Brian Rice from Nottingham Forrest. It just couldn’t happen now.”
Brown, now the chairman of Scotland’s League Managers’ Association, knows there was no room for sentiment that day but that doesn’t diminish his admiration for the manner in which his former club went about their business.
He said: “Jim and I really liked
Falkirk. We were there for five years but that afternoon it was all about getting Hearts to our third cup final in two seasons.
“And although our boys weren’t great on the day, they got us there and we all know what happened in the final against Rangers.
“That was one of the best days of our careers but a lot of people forget how hard it was for us to get there. Falkirk gave us a scare.
“But we were due a wee break after the club had suffered so much heartache over the years.”