East of Scotland Side Season Preview

Posted on Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

As the new season fast approaches this Saturday 10th August a new challenge awaits many of the players in the East of Scotland squad. We have retained the playing services of most of our players from last season’s Juniors squad with the exception being Chris Milligan who has moved onto Lothian Hutchison Vale, we wish Chris all the best for the season ahead and thank him for his contribution over the past seasons. We have also retained the services of many long serving Spartans players who have come through the youth ranks with us and now enter into this exciting new challenge with us in the East of Scotland Premier League.

We have also made some notable new additions to the squad with Ian Ballantyne joining from Edinburgh South Vics, Ian (Hammy) chose Spartans over a host of clubs who were looking to secure his services for the forthcoming season, Robbie Laird joins us from the Spartans Amateur team he is a player that we have been trying to sign for quite some time now, Robbie is a very versatile player and has looked very fit in pre-season whilst he will also add a bit of experience to our squad, Haydn Crane joins from last year’s U19’s he is a player who we have kept a close eye on for the past few seasons, he has developed well and I look forward to seeing Haydn compete at this level of football, Alex Brown and Chris Taylor join us from last season’s U21 squad and I know both players well, they will both be good additions to the squad, our latest signing is Mike Gray who joins us from Edinburgh University Mike is a proven goal scorer and come highly recommended by a number of people within the game.

We have also secured the services of Brian Johnston onto the management team alongside myself, Darren, Ricky and the ever supportive Dickie for the new season, Brian was at East Stirling last year.

Our pre-season preparation has gone well providing the management team with an opportunity to have a look at a number of players over the past 4 weeks, unfortunately we have been unable to take all these players into the new season with us, we do however wish them all the every success in the new season and thank them for their efforts over the past few weeks.

Easthouses at home on Saturday is a completely new challenge for us as I know very little about them as team, however I have already been informed that they will provide us with stiff opposition as we play our first game of the new season. We will be without the services of Davy and Kiddo as they are away on holiday whilst Matty is struggling to be fit in time due to an injury picked up in the pre-season.

Let’s hope for a good entertaining game this Saturday as we start our league cup campaign.

Finally as the club moves into a new era with our senior team playing its inaugural game in the new Lowland League we would like to take this opportunity to wish them all the very best on the next step of the journey to bring SFL Football to Ainslie Park.

Alex