Coming Home By Donald C Stewart

Date: 9th April 2026

Coming Home

By Donald C Stewart

If you’re already singing that three lines on the shirts nonsense, then I apologise. However, there are three Scottish stories that have hit this coming last week or so that I think are well worthy of the headline of Coming Hame. See, better already, at least you have stopped singing it…

The first one is the most obvious. Hamilton Academical have announced that they intend to return to New Douglas Park from next season, having played a year at Broadwood Stadium in Cumbernauld. Rob Edwards’ Morley Sports Management Group, who bought the club from Seref Zengen in January, have announced that they have signed a two-year deal subject to SPFL approval that they shall be playing their football in Hamilton once again, as Hamilton Academical should.

Having endured an incredible 18 months of turbulence and tension, it is fantastic to see fans looking forward to going, literally, home.

The second story I noticed was Clydebank FC’s current topping, once again, of the Scottish Lowland League.

They are on target to win it, which would put them into the playoffs. Now the story of Clydebank Football Club once of the Premier League, many, many years ago, once managed by Ian McCall is a long and involved one involving skulduggery, backstabbing and well, football at its worst. Once sold off to a man who thought it a good idea to take them to Ireland, Carlisle or Galashiels with some bizarre franchise thinking, Clydebank were eventually removed from the Football League and their registration went up for sale after the temporarily ceased to exist due to financial mismanagement. As usual, nothing to do with the fans.

At the same time, Airdrieonians were going through a tough period and they bought the registration, thus consigning Clydebank FC theoretically to the wastepaper basket.

Thanks to a number of doughty fighters in the Clydebank faithful, the United Clydebank Supporters, they resurrected their club and have come through the ranks in the pyramid system and now sit on the cusp of getting back into the SPFL.

It would be a remarkable turnaround.

Bonnyrigg Rose and Linlithgow Rose (Clydebank are therefore literally the thorn atween both roses…) are both vying with them at the top of the Lowland League to try and stop them getting there. With two games to go, it looks as though Clydebank’s season, which included a long run at the top of the league at the beginning of it, could end up in success.

The third story may well be the stumbling block in Clydebank’s progress. In the Highland League, Brechin City, who, when they fell out of the SPFL, entered into a long debate about whether they should drop into the Highland or Lowland Leagues, is topping the Highland League after a topsy-turvy last couple of months.

Vying with Formartine United and Brora Rangers to win top spot, Brechin City would then, once again, be thrown into the playoffs for the second time since they’ve been up in the Highlands.

More importantly, if Brechin City don’t win the league and also gain promotion from the Highland League this season, then next season they will be in the Lowland League.

This is due to the agreement that was put in place when they fell out the SPFL.

Of course, many in Brechin City feel that being promoted back into the SPFL is exactly where they ought to be, but given the last few seasons they’ve had whilst they’ve been in the Highland League, always competitive, always near the top, and winning the championship once before, runners up for the last two seasons, it might well be a false dawn. League Two is no easy pathway for them. And the Lowland League has been a graveyard for former SPFL sides – East Stirlingshire about to beat Gretna to being the first to be further relegated, Albion Rovers are near the foot, whilst Cowdenbeath and Berwick Rangers are struggling to get into the top ten…

Languishing at the bottom of League Two at the moment, and likely to face off to the winner of the unfair, in my opinion, first round of the playoffs, is former Lowland League side, Edinburgh City.

They are tenth, some way off safety, with Dumbarton having fallen into ninth, but The Sons are 11 points ahead with only 4 to play. The likelihood, therefore, of the return of the Bankies, the hopes of the Brechin faithful, in front of that huge hedge, with the SPFL being the very cherry on the top of their cake, is enticing, but it also speaks to the past.

Brechin City and Clydebank are of another age, perhaps. Edinburgh City were of a new dawn.

But if or when the three potentially do clash, we can look forward to, is seeing Scottish football doing what Scottish football does best: provide incredible entertainment in the lower leagues.

And if you’re getting bored by anything your club is not doing in the Premiership, cast an eye down south.

That’s down south in the leagues, not to the Premier League in England.

There you’ll find plenty of excitement to keep you going. Oh, and maybe schedule in a visit to New Douglas Park, back to its splendid red and white best…

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Posted in: Fan's Blog, Latest News

Tags: Hamilton Accies, oor Donald, Scottish fans, Scottish football