John McGlynn proud ahead of Premiership return with Falkirk

John McGlynn is proud to have earned the right to return to the Premiership with Falkirk 12 and a half years since he last managed in the top flight with Hearts.

The 63-year-old was headhunted by the Jambos from Raith Rovers in 2012 but was sacked in February 2013.

That short stint at Tynecastle remains McGlynn’s only permanent crack at managing in the top flight, but he was always hopeful he would get another chance.

As he prepares for Sunday’s eagerly-awaited campaign opener at home to Dundee United, the manager revealed a sense of satisfaction that he has achieved that feat organically by leading Falkirk from League One to the top tier in his fruiftul three-year reign so far.

“It was always an ambition to try and take a team up to the Premiership,” McGlynn said on Friday. “I nearly did it with Raith Rovers (in 2021, during a second spell) but now I’ve done it with Falkirk. So I think there’s great reward and great satisfaction in having done that rather than me just going and getting another Premiership job.

“I’ve actually managed to take a team that was finishing fifth and sixth in League One and build a team. We were in League One for five years (before promotion in 2024) so to go from there to here, I’m quite proud of that.”

Having won back-to-back titles, McGlynn admits he has no idea how his team will cope with being cast as an underdog in the top flight.

“It will be very interesting, he said. “It’s very difficult to know how well we’re going to do. It’s all very much up in the air. We’ve got a team that are used to winning and have got momentum and they have a great team spirit.

“All these things are what you would take from a team who’s won a league and go up. But we’re nowhere near winning as many games (this season) and we’re going to lose more games than we’ve done probably in the last three years, so we’ll have to be aware of that. We’re not going to be too critical.

“We’ll need to learn on the job, so to speak, because not a lot of the players have played at that level.

“We’ve brought in some who have and that’s going to help us, but we’ll need to stick together. We want to get off a good start and that will certainly give us a foundation to build on.”