Dunfermline manager Jim Jefferies believes securing top-flight survival with the East End Park outfit would rank beside winning the Scottish Cup with Hearts in 1998.
The veteran coach succeeded Jim McIntyre last month with the Pars already rooted to the foot of the SPL, four points adrift of Hibernian. Within a fortnight he saw that gap extended to seven points.
That deficit was cut at the weekend with a thrilling 4-4 draw at St Mirren but Dunfermline remain overwhelming favourites for the drop ahead of Saturday’s visit of Aberdeen.
And the 61-year-old believes staying in the SPL with the Pars, and in doing so relegating his old foes Hibernian, would be among the greatest moments in his 45 years in senior football.
He conceded: ”This would need to rank up there with the best of my achievements if I was able to pull it off. As the season has gone on Dunfermline have become more and more people’s favourites to go down.
“I’ve come into a situation where with the games left it was always going to be difficult. It would be a fantastic credit to ourselves if we stay up.
“Even weeks before I came in people were writing us off. At the start of the season I think we were a lot of people’s favourites to go down. That tends to be the way when teams go up, aside from that initial boost you get after promotion.”
Supporters do not need to be reminded that Dunfermline are the only senior side in British football without a home league win this season.
”You don’t want that on your CV, more than anything,” Jefferies acknowledged.
The SPL’s bottom side have two matches to ensure they do not become the first side since their great Fife rivals, Raith Rovers, to finish the season without a top division triumph to their name. That feat occurred in the 1962-63 season.
Jefferies continued: ”I’ve only had two games at home but the other guys will be fed up with the record of no wins. What I keep reminding them is that you really do not want to have been part of a team that didn’t win at home all season.
”We’ve only got two opportunities left to sort it, and I’d like to win both of them if I am honest. In fact, we need those two victories, starting on Saturday.
”I’ve been in the game a long time and worked with good groups of players but this current lot are up there in terms of their work-rate. They have responded well to me and are motivated.
”It’s not through lack of effort and will that we are where we are.”
Photo by Kirk O’Rourke/PA Wire