A Belated Start

Posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012

As everyone knows, tonight we make a belated start to our 12/13 campaign.  As you can imagine, it was extremely disappointing for everyone connected with the Club to be told at 10.30am on Saturday morning our game vs. Ormiston had been postponed.  With the game postponed at such short notice, we elected to train at the Academy, which was beneficial for everyone who took part, in particular those players returning from injury.

Looking back on our pre-season programme, for me there was lots of positives.  Our goals for pre-season were relatively straight forward, namely to (1) prepare our new squad as best we could on and off the park, (2) introduce some new methods and ideas, (3) recruit some new signings, replacements for those players who have moved on and lastly (4) begin the process on creating a real sense of togetherness and unity
throughout the squad.  On all 4 fronts, the coaching staff and I are happy with the progress which has been made to date.

More than anyone, I fully appreciate a great deal of work lies ahead, no one is kidding themselves, we know we are in a transition phase.  Just now, our squad can been classed as ‘work in progress’.  However, we are blessed with good players, some top players at our level and have high hopes for the future.  As with any journey there will be bumps and bruises along the way.  We will ‘learn to win big’ by experiencing the pain of defeat, it’s the very nature of developing and building teams which can win football matches and trophies on a regular basis.

We’d love to get off to a winning start, to begin the process of turning Ainslie Park into our own mini-fortress, a place where Teams know they face one of their toughest away games of the season.  For some, tonight will be the first competitive game in a Spartans jersey, whilst for others it will the start of another campaign in red in white.  What is certain is that all of the players involved tonight are determined to make their mark, to play their part in restoring the Club to its former glories. Ds