Hibs travelled to Falkirk to complete the third quarter of an increasingly lop-sided First Division season. In the opening stages of the season, the race was surprisingly close with seven teams in the race at the end of the first quarter. As the season progressed, the contenders dropped out one by one until just four remained at the end of the second quarter: Hibs, Falkirk, Airdrie, and Ayr. Now only Hibs remained. While Hibs' erstwhile challengers had shown remarkable resilience in hanging on in there for as long as they did, the long unbeaten run by the Easter Road outfit had finally broken their resolve.

Falkirk were just ahead of the chasing pack but were 17 points adrift but with one game in hand. Alex McLeish typically argued that promotion was far from secure and had cited the case 1991 when  he played for Aberdeen as they pulled back a yawning seven-point gap on Rangers. That year Aberdeen went to Ibrox on the last day of the season needing a draw to take the championship. Predictably, Aberdeen lost out 2-0 after Mark Hately roughed up stand-in goalkeeper Michael Watt to score twice.

There is some difference between pulling back a 7 point gap with 13 matches to go and overturning a 17 point margin in 10 games (11 for Falkirk) even with the aid of three points for a win. With the bookies offering somewhat shorter odds on a Tory majority in the Scottish Parliament than promotion for Falkirk or Ayr, McLeish was probably the only person in Scotland not accepting the inevitability of a Hibs championship.

Given the relative state of the two teams, tickets were selling faster in Edinburgh than they were in Falkirk. After Hibs' original allocation was sold out, two or three further allocations were snapped up. This led to around 4,000 Hibs' supporters making the journey to Falkirk. Because of the inevitable congestion on the roads and problems with parking, many decided to go by train.  While the main line Edinburgh-Glasgow trains go via Falkirk High station, Brockville is much nearer to Falkirk Grahamston  station. This is served by the Edinburgh-Dunblane service.

The two coach sprinter units used on this line were not really up to the volume of traffic generated. This led to something of a culture shock for the American back packers and genteel old ladies who frequent the service as the green bedecked hoards packed onto the train at Waverley and Haymarket. I suppose that it was too much to expect Scotrail to anticipate this over-crowding and use four coach units.

Arriving in Falkirk, all the pubs seemed to be full of Hibs' supporters and many had bouncers on the door  to keep out any more punters. It was a dull drizzly day in Falkirk and this did not show Brockville in its best light. Sections of the crumbling terraces remained closed and taped off for reasons of safety. The stadium did look in a sorry state.  Its 1950s look with the dull day reinforced the view that television pictures from Brockville should always be in black and white. However as the crowd built up, with Hibs' supporters on all four sides because of the extra ticket allocations, the stadium generated a great atmosphere.

Injuries forced a few changes to the Hibs team and Alex Marinkov and Franck Sauzée were drafted in soon after arriving in Edinburgh. The Hibs defence was given a thorough testing by Kevin McAllister. Hibs appeared to have the edge after a goal on half time by Paul Hartley. Early in the second half, Falkirk equalized and soon after Paul Hartley was sent off. With Hibs really up against it, the crowd provided a lift. Incredibly, Hibs still managed to push players forward and Derek Collins hit a long range shot that deflected off a defender and looped crazily over the goalkeeper and into the net.

Falkirk were stunned by this and Hibs held on to win. All this increased Hibs' lead to 20 points. Falkirk's prospects of promotion dipped below the chances of the Monster Raving Loony Party  cleaning up at Holyrood. Alex McLeish remained unconvinced.

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