FALKIRK hope they are days away at most from identifying their so-called supporters who brought worldwide shame to the club and subsequently banning them for life.

Manager Paul Hartley experienced just about everything football has to offer but what happened at East End Park on Tuesday was a new low for him and, indeed, the game in Scotland which have never been blemish free.

In all honesty, what is to be said about a small group of people who dreamed up the idea of buying false eyes from a joke shop, then taking them into a match to throw at a fellow human being who’d undergone an operation to take eye out an eye?

This was not spur of the moment. It was pre-mediated.

What must Dean Shiels, the victim, think of Falkirk?

Firstly, two of the club’s players, Joe McKee and Kevin O’Hara, were suspended after being found guilty of taunting the Dunfermline midfielder in October over the loss of an eye.

Both men were fortunate not to be sacked for such vile behaviour.

And then this week, an unknown number decided that it was their duty to further abuse Shiels because, well, only they will know.

Falkirk were yesterday waiting to study the CCTV. Those guilty will be caught, although it would be nice to hope that the supporters who witnessed this sub-human behaviour will assist.

Kenny Shiels, the father of Dean, was unhappy with Falkirk chairman Margaret Lang, a lawyer, who defended McKee at his tribunal.

“The criticism of Falkirk’s handling of the situation is unfair,” said Hartley. “What does Kenny want the club to do? What else can we do? The club have made a statement, they are looking into it. In no way has the club underplayed this. Absolutely not.

“I want to try and draw a line under it as much as I can because I want to focus on the game on Saturday. We don’t like what we happened and it’s not something we want as a football club.

“The relationship between the two managers and clubs is fine. We are rivals for 90 minutes. We don’t want to see things like that happen.

“We know there’s a big rivalry but there’s a line that you don’t cross.

“I can’t add too much but we don’t to see things like that happened.

“It is a minority. There isn’t a lot I can do about certain situations. This isn’t something I want to be talking about, to be honest.”

Nobody does but this story did go viral and does not reflect well on Falkirk who, in fairness, released a statement which struck the right cord.

Hartley’s Falkirk are second bottom of the Championship and it is only right that he wanted to concentrate on Saturday’s game home game against Dundee United.

But with the suspensions of McKee and O’Hara about to end, this matter won’t go away.

“I think they (the players) have got to just try and handle it as best as they can and not react,” said Hartley. “That’s all we can say to them.

“They are not bad lads. Kevin made a mistake, Joe was in a different situation terms of what he did say, but they have got to handle it in the next game that they play in. That’s just a fact.

“They have to be ready for any abuse that comes their way and try and blank it out and forget about it and concentrate on the football pitch because that’s where we need them.”

It’s not as if Hartley and Falkirk don’t have enough to be getting on with right now.