The Numbers Game 📈

What previous promoted teams tell us about Falkirk’s chances of survival

Whatever the league in whatever the country, teams that get promoted struggle in their first seasons back in the top division, let alone if they’ve come up via back-to-back elevations, as has been the case with this remarkable Falkirk side.

So bear with me while I furnish you with a few statistics from other major leagues in Europe before we see what the really important data tells us.

In the past five seasons in England’s Premier League, 15 teams have been promoted from the Championship and no fewer than 10 of them, or 66.6%, have been immediately relegated after one season. That included all six teams in the past two seasons — Leicester, Ipswich, Southampton, Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton — plus Norwich and Watford in 2021-22 and West Brom and Fulham in 2020-21.

Why do clubs struggle upon going up? It’s a fairly obvious blend of the promoted teams needing to play catch-up on experience, squad quality, confidence — and financial stability to make choices that can mitigate all that.

Over in Spain, five of the 15 teams promoted to La Liga in the last five seasons (33.3%) have gone straight back down, while in Italy’s Serie A, it’s been six of 15 (40%). In Germany’s Bundesliga, only 10 teams have gone up in the last five years and four of them (40%) have gone straight back down. And in France’s Ligue 1, it’s been four going straight back down from 12 over five years (33%).

So, what do the Scottish numbers tell us, and how can we explain what has happened, and indeed what might happen to Falkirk in 2025-26 based on this experience?

I’ve gone back and considered the entire Scottish Premiership era since 2013-14, the first season of the revamped top division following the merger of the SPL and the SFL.

In the intervening 12 seasons, no fewer than 15 clubs have been promoted to Scotland’s top flight, either directly as Championship winners or as a result of the end-of-season play-offs between those 11^th placed in the top division and those second to fourth in the Championship.

The amount of them who have survived at least for their first season is surprising set against the context of most other leagues. In the table below I’ll list the 15 clubs, their managers when they went up (and how long they lasted in their jobs), and the fate of the club in their first season.

I have also added where each of the clubs ranked in terms of attendance during that season, as a proxy for the ‘size’ of each club.

In a second graphic lower down in this piece, I consider the top league scorer for each relevant team, to assess whether you need, for example, to have at least one 10-goal striker to give you the firepower to underpin a survival tilt.

First of all, however, the headline findings.