FOR the first time in 26 years a championship flag will flutter over Cliftonhill this year.
It was an afternoon of celebration for Albion Rovers as they fought back from a 2-0 deficit against Barry Ferguson's Clyde, a victory that when put in tandem with the Queen's Park draw at Arbroath enabled them to claim the League Two title.
But as the players partied in the Broadwood sunshine there was a poignant note to proceedings too.
John Gemmell netted the equalising goal midway through the second period to cancel out Clyde's lead but his goal - and afternoon - was dedicated to the memory of Elsepth Reilly, the wife of club secretary Paul who died at the end of February after a short battle with cancer.
"It is very emotional for me and it is the best moment of my career," said Gemmell.
"I want to dedicate my goal to Elspeth because she was very close to me. That goal was for her because she was a great woman.
"It means so much. I will carry the medal everywhere with me - it means so much to me and I hope the younger lads appreciate it. I have been relegated from the Premier League, the First Division, the Second Division and I have never won a title."
Yet, had Albion Rovers not been alert to an administration blunder they could have put their weekend title in jeopardy. Speaking after their 3-2 win over Clyde that crowned them title winners with two games to spare, player-manager Darren Young revealed that had Mick Dunlop not flagged up the fact he was suspended for the meeting he could have played - and risked Albion forfeiting the points.
Dunlop was missed off the weekly list of suspensions issued by the SFA and it was the player and the manager themselves who spotted the error.
"We had to phone up ourselves about Michael's suspension," he said. "It came through as three bookings but we found out it was six so there is every chance that we would have played with Michael and then being fined and lost the points.
"It came through that he wasn't suspended - he wasn't on the list. Michael and I spoke about it, we checked up on it and he had been booked six times. Had we played him we would have been guilty of fielding an ineligible player.
"We had to chase it ourselves and that's ridiculous.
"But we'll enjoy this now. The chairman, Pat Gillooly, and his brother who have been at every game this season missed it because they were at a family wedding. He will be gutted but he has promised to take the whole squad away to Spain as a reward for winning the league so we'll enjoy that."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article