Falkirk chairman Gary Deans pens open letter to supporters

In it, he apologises to the Bairns faithful for letting them down, addresses the departure of Lee Miller and David McCracken, player contracts and the appointment of a new head coach.

In his letter, released on the club’s official website, Deans wrote: “The last few weeks have been amongst the most difficult that we have had to endure, and I want to write on behalf of the Board to apologise to you all for our failure to achieve the number one priority – promotion from League 1. Like you, we have spent yesterday coming to terms with the raw emotion of it all. The pain is almost physical and I, like you, never want to experience this again.

"All of the Board have been asked the same question – what went wrong? We were, after all, three points clear at the top with six games to go. The truth is that performances had been declining before that and since the return from league suspension which left us all very concerned. This led to the departure of our coaches which was necessary but difficult.

"We asked Gary Holt to take over as interim manager, which in all honesty was a thankless task. Given our serious injury problems Gary had a depleted squad to work with, sometimes as little as 14 fit players, and limited options to halt the decline. We hired Gary as Sporting Director to guide the club in its long-term football strategy, not as our manager, and I want to thank him for taking on what was an almost impossible short-term task. Gary will now return to the job we hired him for.

"We have spent days as a Board discussing the steps that need to be taken to address the challenges we face. There will be changes to our squad, and we will be making announcements on this in the next few days and weeks, as we release players and bring in new faces. Our number one priority is the appointment of a new Head Coach and this process is well under way.

"We have been in slow decline as a club for far too long and while I know we are putting things in place to rebuild our infrastructure, these investments and changes take time to fully bear fruit. Of course, this does not fix what has just happened, but we firmly believe that with the right recruitment and continued hard work from everyone we can turn around our fortunes.

"We will keep you up to date with all developments and as part of this will be hosting a Q&A session with fans later this month to give you the chance to ask questions of me, the Board and Gary Holt. We are exploring the practicalities of doing this in person or online and we will be governed by the latest pandemic regulations.

“Once again, I am sorry that we have failed you. But know that everyone on the Board of Falkirk Football Club is committed to working together to build the success we all yearn for.

“Thank you for your continued support during this time.