Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Jim McInally, who as a footballer scaled the giddy heights of success, will be a sporting hero by five o'clock tonight —- if he can end one of the longest losing streaks in British professional football.

For the past six weeks McInally has been manager of East Stirlingshire —- “Shire” to its 300 or so fans —- which lies, just as it has for the past six seasons, at the foot of the Scottish Third Division.

Since its unenviable run began, the side has lost 157 times, defeats coming at five times the rate of victories.

In one season Shire failed to muster a home win; in another they failed to win away. The team has conceded an average of more than 90 goals a season.

But today, should they defeat Montrose, and their rivals Forfar draw or lose against Dumbarton, Shire will not finish bottom. Instead, they will be second from bottom, an infinitesimal shift, like marking the progress of a glacier, but progress nonetheless.

McInally has some form as a miracle-worker. He played for the great Dundee United side, which against all odds battled through to the Uefa cup final, defeating Barcelona at home and away.

Perhaps more remarkably he was with lowly Raith Rovers when the Fife side took the lead against Bayern Munich in the Olympic Stadium, in an unlikely European tie. “Aye, that really was pretty unbelievable,” he said.

But now he has charge of a side that is on the brink of a great achievement of its own. What on earth will he say before they run on to the field?

“Exactly what I've said for the past six weeks,” he shrugged. "'You shouldn't be in this situation; it's up to you to get yourselves out of it.' They are a good set of lads and I've never seen them give anything but the best. And they are better than a lot of teams in this league.”

Win, lose or draw, the game is momentous in another way. This is the final fixture for Shire in Firs Park, the stadium that they have occupied for the past 87 years of their 124-year history.

The club has sold its land and a development of executive homes is planned at the site, which is close to Falkirk town centre.

When the final whistle sounds, East Stirlingshire FC will be homeless and, from the beginning of next season, obliged to share the ground of local rivals, the “Warriors” of Stenhousemuir.

Neither McInally, 42, nor Les Thomson, the veteran chief executive of the club, are sentimental about the move.

With admirable optimism McInally said that he took the job because he liked the challenge of it, that “and knowing there's a bit of ambition about the place”.

He is upbeat because the club has a new investor, a South Yorkshire businessman called Spencer Fearn, and there are plans for a stadium either in nearby Grangemouth, or on land owned by Falkirk Council.

The players, McInally insists, have had a rise on their £10-a-week pay.

In his office under the ramshackle main stand of Firs Park, Mr Thomson finds the prospect of a new ground alluring. A former player with Falkirk, he has worked here for 16 years but admits the stadium has had its day.

He points to the retail park that has encroached on to the space around the ground, blocking off almost all pedestrian approaches.

Its presence means that access to the stand and the directors box —- where visiting dignitaries might be entertained —- is through a battered metal gate in an otherwise impregnable brick wall.

He has never been a loser, Mr Thomson insisted: “But I can hold my head up high. These laddies are playing for a few pounds a week, and these supporters are paying them the money, and they watch them. An ex-footballer said to me the other day, 'East Stirlingshire must be one of the only clubs who when they get beat, the supporters clap them off the park'.”

Today they could have something to cheer about at last.

“We're going in there with the positive side of this,” McInally said. “Somebody will take a hammering one day. This could be our game. We'll most certainly be trying.”

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