Falkirk ace Tom Lang reviews last season's finish and how's he's feeling heading into Scottish Premiership

Promotion specialist Tom Lang reckons hard work has finally got him to Scottish football’s top table.

The Falkirk centre-back, 28, played his part in the Bairns’ Scottish Championship title win last term after returning from a long-term injury in January. And that achievement now completes a clean sweep of SPFL promotions for the former part-time player.

Lang always thought he’d reach Premiership

When asked if he ever thought he’d reach the Premiership, he said: “I could to be honest! That was always my target. I remember going part-time, working in a gym as a personal trainer, and thinking that I really didn’t want to do this long-term. I wanted to play football. It was the kick up the bum I needed. I worked as hard as I possibly could from that age to now. Back then I probably was a little too relaxed mind you and thought that it would just happen. But I realise now that you only get to that point by working as hard as possible. I’ve been lucky in the sense that I have won promotion from every league (SPFL) now and reached that final step. Every player has come back so fit and we are so professional. Everyone has a real grit and determination to push themselves that little bit further.

Lang, who signed a new deal until 2027 this summer, added: “I feel good again. I’ve been working on my strength to make sure I am really peaking there. I’ve been able to let everything settle down now and I feel great. I am doing double sessions and not having to worry which is a massive thing mentally for me knowing that you are alright. Last year, I always felt like I was playing catch-up, but this year I can get pre-season games under my belt and kick on.”

Reviewing the end of last season, the centre-back admitted the aftermath of the Partick Thistle loss on the second last matchday was tough to take. Lang was at fault for Brian Graham’s opener on the night at Firhill as the Bairns failed to all-but secure the title.

“After the Thistle game, it was really tough to be fair,” he said. “But we were still confident that we would go out and do the job. It was just a situation that we didn’t want to be in clearly. But various things happened and to be honest it just felt like luck evaded us completely. You make your own luck in football however and we went into that last game with so much pressure on us and that didn’t need to happen from the position we were in. But if you told me at the start of last season that we’d have a home game to secure the league in our own hands then we would have taken that for sure. The boys did incredibly well to get to that point in the first place and although heads were down a little bit we went out on the Saturday (after the Friday night game) and by the start of the next week we were bang on it again.”

Lang reviews Bairns’ end of season party

Meanwhile, the end of the season after the final night win over Hamilton Accies was full of joy. And Lang revealed just how those celebrations went, saying: “We certainly had a wee bit of time enjoying ourselves and letting our hair loose. It was really good. We are all super close and it was quality spending time together. It was a lot! We won the league on the Friday night and I didn’t get into my own bed until Thursday the following week. It was a week of constant drinking and partying. First night we were here at the stadium until the early morning. Then on the Saturday we had the big party at the Maniqui in Falkirk.

“We met at noon and didn’t finish up until 12ish. The boys then had the PFA awards and after that most of us were up at four in the morning to fly out to Ibiza. I drove down to Manchester to catch a flight while some of the boys went to Newcastle, Edinburgh etc. It was just whenever we could get a seat on a flight to get us out there. We had three nights there which was chaos and after that I needed a week or so just to chill out again. These are the moments you need to enjoy in life because some boys go through their career not winning a league and when you do it - you need to make the most of it. We’ve gone back to back and achieved all of the goals that we set out to achieve. Now we can relish the challenge ahead with no fear. This is where the club has said from day one that it wants to get back to. Doing it in two years is amazing.”