From Hearts guardedness to freedom with Falkirk for McGlynn
Undefeated title-winning manager on journey since leaving Tynecastle
JOHN McGLYNN is the latest member of one of Scottish football’s most exclusive clubs. The former Heart of Midlothian manager, now in charge at Falkirk, became just the fourth postwar manager to record an unbeaten league season as the Bairns finally escaped League One at long last.
It is a remarkable achievement, and one that McGlynn has been rightfully recognised for. The 62-year-old won the PFA Scotland Manager of the Year award, voted for by his peers, this week and has been nominated for the four-man shortlist to win the SFWA’s equivalent award.
“It’s a great honour,” McGlynn says. “It’s been the icing on the cake of what has been a truly magnificent season.”
It is hard to disagree. Come the end of it all, Falkirk’s league record stood at: played 36, won 29, drew 9, lost zero. Returning to the Championship was naturally McGlynn’s primary focus but as the unbeaten streak continued, he found himself tasking the players with stretching it just that little bit longer.
“We moved our targets as the season progressed,” McGlynn explained. “Ultimately we wanted to get promoted – that has to be the aim for a club of Falkirk’s stature, especially after all the time spent in League One.
“However, once you get into the first quarter and we are going along very, very well, it was looking like we were going to have a really good season. Then you can look at setting other targets, and you ultimately have to do that. We said, ‘Can we get to Christmas unbeaten?’ – which we did. After that you are breaking it up – ‘Can we get to the end of the third quarter unbeaten?’ – which, again, we did. The league title was within our grasp and we managed to win it on March 30. We still had five or so games to go and at that point the focus becomes keeping this unbeaten run going right until the very end.
“Setting little targets was important, but we were very much concentrated on the next game all the time. Confidence, belief, momentum, good dressing room, good team spirit, everyone getting involved and buying into it – all these things bring success to a football club.”
Another part of that success has surely been the manner in which Falkirk strolled to the third-tier title. When at Hearts, McGlynn’s tactical style could probably best be described as cautious. But when he returned to management at Raith Rovers, following a spell as a scout at Celtic, his outlook on the game had changed. Now, his teams would play entertaining football centred around intricate passing moves and a forward-thinking attitude.
McGlynn’s Raith Rovers and Falkirk sides have received plaudits for the way they approach the game, and rightly so. Football is an entertainment business – and McGlynn’s teams provide that in spades.
“I think my teams often get that description because that’s the way we want to play,” he said. “We played some really, really good football
under myself and Paul [Smith, his No.2] at Raith Rovers and got them into a really great position.
“It was always about trying to play… there are many ways to play football that gets you results, and I am not preaching, but I like to see something that I can identify myself with, where I can see what the team is trying to do. I think the fans now want to see that as well. They like to identify with the team and know what they’re trying to do.
“There are some of our phases of play where it’s easy on the eye, and as long as you’re attacking and the results are coming, everyone will really enjoy it. That extends to the players, too – players come to us because they want to be involved in playing like that. They want to play quickly with incisive passes, looking to hurt the opposition, looking to get crosses in the box, causing excitement.
“The style is very much a big part of what makes it even more pleasing,
that we have done it that way. It’s not just been a matter of 30 clean sheets and 1-0 wins.”
Falkirk finished the league season with 96 goals, and no player contributed more to the team’s attack than Callumn Morrison. The 24-year-old winger, a product of Hearts’ youth system, won League One’s Players’ Player of the Year award and it isn’t hard to see why. Playing out wide, Morrison finished the campaign as the division’s top scorer with 23 goals in total. That sort of form led to a few other clubs sniffing around in the January window – but McGlynn was delighted to see the winger commit his future to the club in February by signing a contract extension that will keep him at the Falkirk Stadium until the summer of 2026.
“He’s been extremely important – extremely,” McGlynn stresses. “The amount of goals he has scored from his position is remarkable. He’s a winger, not a No.9, and he’s got defensive duties within that. He has got to get up and down the park and there are no easy shifts in our teams. Everyone has got to function for the team to function, otherwise it all falls down. So Callumn – like Calvin [Miller], like Alfie Agyeman, like Ethan Ross – all those wingers have got to put in a shift, both in attack and in defence. For Callumn to score so many goals is awesome.
“We felt like we might lose him in January because his contract was running down and there was a fair amount of interest in him, but thankfully he stayed – and thankfully after that he signed a new contract. We’re delighted to have him for the next couple of years, fingers crossed. He has supplied a lot of goals as well. We could have scored a lot more with the amount of crosses he was putting into the box. He is very, very quick and he uses his pace well. He has a lot of power in his shots, which gets him a lot of goals, and his deliveries are excellent. He very much ticks all the boxes you would look for in an attacking winger.”
McGlynn added: “I think the dressing room has brought the best out of Callumn. When we came in, you could probably say that Callumn was quite quiet and a little bit introverted to begin with. But then guys like Gary Oliver, Stephen McGinn, Calvin Miller, Brad Spencer – they’ve just brought a personality to the dressing room that has got Callumn really feeling comfortable. He has come out of his shell a little bit and I think that comfort in the dressing room has brought out the best in his football.
“It’s great to see that. There’s a lot of things that go into it but I would certainly compliment the dressing room as that’s played a massive part. Don’t get me wrong – they’re playing wee tricks on each other and Callumn is very much at the heart of that! But if it’s made him happy and allows him to play the best football of his life, then I’m also happy with that.”
The style is very much a big part of what makes it even more pleasing. It’s not just been a matter of 30 clean sheets and 1-0 wins