Published: Thursday, 23rd April, 2009 1:45pm

Old boys back the Pars to beat Falkirk

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THE Pars" legendary Scottish Cup winning captains are agreed that the Bairns will be beaten on Sunday, it"s just a matter of what the score will be.

Ron Mailer, who lifted the trophy in 1961, and Roy Barry, who skippered the side to victory in 1968, were re-acquainted with the cup last week when the trophy visited the club shop in the Kingsgate Centre.

Together with some of their team-mates from those halcyon days, they reminisced about their own semi-final experiences and all tipped the Pars to win the Hampden clash with Falkirk – as long as the players argue with each other and don"t become 'pansies'!

Mailer said, 'We beat St Mirren in the semi-final, we won 1-0, and I just remember the goal going in when big Charlie Dickson went up for a corner kick.

'We had a lot of supporters there that day and, as for Sunday, I think Dunfermline will win 1-0.

'There won"t be much in it as Falkirk are no mugs.

'We seem to play a different way in the cup and it"s a one-off game so they should just have a go.'

Team-mate Alex Smith reckoned the Pars would also win 1-0 but wasn"t so clear on his own semi-final day, with good reason.

He laughed, 'It"s almost 50 years now but I certainly remember getting a wallop in the head from Jim Clunie.

'Jock Stein was a formidable figure, a bit like Sir Alex Ferguson today, and he always seemed to get the best out of an ordinary set of players.'

Barry has already got his ticket and bus sorted out for the trip to Glasgow"s south side, a regular journey for the Pars in the last five years, and reckons Nick Phinn and Graham Bayne will be their matchwinners.

'We"ll win 2-1,' he said immediately.

'I saw them at Aberdeen and the performance was great, they seem to have a different mindset for the cup as they looked like an SPL team.

"It"s strange compared to their league form but they"ve got to adapt to each game, get out there and do it.'

As for the 1968 semi-final triumph, he was typically forthright.

'We played St Johnstone at Tynecastle and we were useless,' he admitted.

'To get to the final was a miracle as the performance was shocking, but we realised our name must be on the cup as, going by how we played, we didn"t deserve to be there.'

Willie Callaghan didn"t miss the target either, as he told the Press, 'We were very fortunate to get to the final because of a decision that went against St Johnstone and if it had gone against us we would have gone crackers.

"They scored and the ref said it wasn"t over the line but John Lunn was almost in the crowd when he cleared it!

'It must have been three feet over and we still talk about it now as it was the hardest game we had.

'The final was just a walkover.'

Callaghan"s big match prediction was 1-0 to the Pars but he added, 'Dunfermline need a bit more leadership and grit on the park as we used to argue with each other for 90 minutes and you don"t see that now.

'We fought with each other, training ground bust-ups were the norm but we went and fought for each other on the park too.

'You need to have arguments to be successful, if you don"t have that you"ve just got a bunch of pansies.'

Bert Paton, who scored in the semi-final and went on to manager the Pars, said, 'They gave us a hard time and were aggrieved not to go through but we"d beaten them twice in the league so felt confident we"d get through.

'Falkirk will have the edge on Sunday, as they"re an SPL side, but anything can happen in the cup.

'It"s a great leveller and everyone expects them to get beat so they"ve nothing to lose. We"ll win 2-1.'