Scotland's Icarus: The Story of Gretna FC 

Couple of points; Brooks didn't take over Gretna until 2003, not straight away and had nothing to do with the club getting into the Scottish League. He wasn't involved at that time at all. I rang up Peter Donald at the SFA myself from home to enquire about Airdrieonians's fate and then raced down to the Club to tell Ron MacGregor (Club Secretary) and Dimmel (Treasurer) what had just gone on. Secondly I never heard ANYONE at the Club - supporters, players or management - say that the Unibond was better than the Scottish Third Division. Gretna is in Scotland and we all wanted the team to play in the Scottish system.

This is a brilliant wee documentary. You're the Scottish HITC7s which I mean as a big compliment

You and Sam at Footy Adventures are now getting me more interested in Scottish football and I thank you both. I support Coventry City

These two stories are a bit irrelevant to the main conversation, so I apologize, but I do want to share them. One time after a Gretna game (which was actually the first Scottish league match against Greenock Morton) some weans (all about 8-12) were playing on the pitch after the game. They were doing no harm and it was lovely to see. Anyway one of them hoofs the balls off the pitch and it lands near me. I was going to kick it straight back, but I thought....this is my chance! I dribbled the ball around three of the bairns and poked it in the corner of the net and finished with a goal celebration of a Mick Channon arm swing (Southampton are my English team, grew up in England before my move to the greatest country in the world.)//// During the first game vs Morton one of the players got injured but the ref didnae blow up. Two St John's people ran onto the pitch - while the ball was still in play - and started to treat the stricken player. Rowan was yelling 'GET OFF THE F****** PITCH!' Funny as owt!

I’ve spent most of my life in Gretna and it’s quite extraordinary what happened

Great video again Calum!

The problem of having a stadium larger than the town/village where it resides is an interesting one. There's at least one example of a side who somehow made this work. Ross County's Victoria Park has a capacity of 6500, and Dingwall only has ~5500 residents. That is a much narrower gap than Gretna had though, and, if I remember rightly, after being accepted into the SFL they developed their club more slowly and organically than Gretna did.

Really glad to see someone actually cover this story accurately. Gretna's model is not a "fairytale". It's the perfect example of so much of what can be wrong about modern football. Paying wages for Premiership players while in the 4th and 3rd tier is just completely unsustainable and unsporting. In a somewhat similar vein to the Wrexham "fairytale", I find the typical media coverage of these stories to be nauseating. It's not a perfect example of sporting miracle, it's capitalist egocentricity gone mad. Good video mate. Been enjoying the content so far.

Another banger Callum. Good work!

Keep up the videos, great to hear stories like these

I remember Mileson trying to buy Carlisle and thought he was as deluded as Knighton a decade earlier. My cousin dated a Gretna player in the early 90s so I found this video really interesting.

Cracking video. Brought back lots of memories. Can only think of it as a scam. Their was no way it was ever going to be sustainable.

These videos are class! Please keep them coming

Should do a video on Anelka at Raith Rovers, Romanov era at Hearts and Rangers liquidation and how the SFA glossed over the period

People keep talking of Wrexham like it's some sort of fairytale too. Having seen what happened to Grenta I have deep misgivings about Wrexham, although absolutely nothing against them or their fans.

Fascinating video mate 👍

Should make a video on Brechin down fall

I know it's England, but there's gotta be a good video to be made about Michael Knighton & Carlisle hasn't there?

Gretna are like a Livingston, not a proper club with a tiny fanbase 🙄 shame they never beat manky Hearts in that Cup Final though as they deserved it.

Another little side thing - Gretna had a Ladies team who were in the English system and did - believe it or not play the likes of Man United (at the Cliff or Carrington or whatever it's called) and Blackburn. They punched above their weight, and although they didn't win against those two they beat a lot of other Ladies teams. Trouble was in early 2003, the manager resigned and funding basically stopped. I realized a lot of the players needed at team and I got a lot of them to join Carlisle.

In fairness, there were a lot of people at the time and in the media who pointed out this wasn't a fairytale. Scottish football has had quite a few of these characters down the years (Di Stefano at Dundee and Romanov at Hearts) and they almost always end in a cautionary tale of hubris and financial ruin. Well done, an interesting watch!

Good video

Im a St Johnstone fan and the Gretna promotion season was my first ever season of being a football fan at around 6 or 7 years old. Heartbreaking stuff