You may remember, from Trainspotting 2, how the stolen cash cards from a Rangers supporters club were all accessed by the pin number 1690, the year of the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne.

If the owner of the San Francisco 49ers takes over, they might want to adopt this even more memorable year for some them -1649.

What happened then?

This:

Catholic King, Charles 1st, lost his head on January 30th 1649.

And this, on September 11, 1649:

Such was the violence displayed by Cromwell and his forces during the Siege of Drogheda and the subsequent Siege of Wexford that, even by 17th-century standards, they can be classed as war crimes. https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/oliver-cromwells-massacre-drogheda-1649

Regicide AND a war crime – great memories? What a year that was.

They’ll probably want to avoid 1652 – ‘Major fire makes about a thousand families homeless; an early fire engine from Edinburgh helps put out the blaze’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Glasgow_history

As a Falkirk fan, I might use 1746, the second Battle of Falkirk, the last Jacobite victory over the Redcoats before Culloden, but must avoid 1298, the first Battle of Falkirk, the defeat of William Wallace’s schiltrons by Edward 1st’s Welsh archers.

One town, two big battles. Quite enough, methinks. No wonder the town motto is so defensive – ‘Better meddle wi’ the Deil than the Bairns o’ Fawkirk.’

Professor John Robertson OBA is (should be) too serious-minded to write this kind of stuff.

Footnote – Prof Robertson ‘was’ a Rangers fan and a proddy from 1956 to 1969, because his grandad and several school bullies told him he was, but then became and still is a proud Bairn and atheist, thank God, despite having lived more than half his life among the ‘Honest Men.’