John Hughes desperate for Caley Scottish Cup win despite his love for Falkirk

John Hughes is desperate to win the Scottish Cup for Inverness Caley Thistle.

But if he has to lose, then he can’t think of a better club to collect the trophy than Falkirk.

He still has a massive emotional attachment to the Bairns.

There are lots of great memories from two spells as a player, and six years as their manager.

Hughes has been voted as the Scottish Football Writers’ Manager of the Year, and will pick up the award at a dinner in Glasgow tonight.

While he obviously has his admirers, Hughes himself is a huge fan of the man who will be in the opposition dug-out at Hampden.

Peter Houston’s success in management hasn’t come as a surprise to Yogi.

He said: “Before you talk about Peter as a player, you need to talk about Peter as a person because he’s one of the real good guys in Scottish football.

“He conducts himself in a great manner, and it’s been great to see him getting back in the game and doing so well at Falkirk. I’ve got so much respect for him.

“As a player, he was coming towards the end of his career when we had that season together, but you could see he knew the game like the back of his hand.

“I went there as a centre forward, and he gave me a lot of guidance. If that’s the way he manages, I’m 100% convinced he’d be a good guy to work for. I can’t speak highly enough of him.

“We’re desperate to bring the Cup back to Inverness for the first time in their history, but if we don’t it is going to a great club.

“Every time I think back to my time there as a player, I just start laughing. I couldn’t tell you the half of it!

“I think it was the size of the pitch at Brockville. We trained on it, we were competitive, and we were a bit like Wimbledon. We liked a battle, liked a fight, we got stuck in.

“And I’ll always be grateful to Jim Jefferies and Billy Brown. They got me at an age where I needed that discipline in my life.

“Playing junior football, you’d still get a game even if you hadn’t trained during the week.

“They signed me for Berwick Rangers, and if you didn’t train, you didn’t play.

“They took me under their wing and that’s how I ended up at Falkirk.

“Even when I left to go to Celtic, I always got the feeling that no Falkirk fan ever grudged me that move, for what I gave the club.”

If Inverness win the Cup, Hughes will dedicate the victory to Craig Gowans, the youngster who was tragically electrocuted at the Falkirk training ground 10 years ago.

He stresses there is no chance of underestimating Falkirk because they finished as the 17th placed team in Scotland and Inverness were third.

He said: “It’ll be the hardest game of the season, I’m telling you that right now.

“I‘ve watched them and watched them, and they’re a right good football side.

“We’ll go in as favourites but we have to have a strong mind-set and play our game.

“I’m actually quite calm about it because getting there has been a remarkable achievement.

“Usually when you get to this stage, you’re playing one half of the Old Firm.

“But this is fresh and it’s good for Scottish football two provincial clubs, one from the Highlands, one from the Championship.

“It’ll be a cracking Cup Final.”