It seems like no time since the season ended – yet already that’s the players back in for pre-season training.  We have a young squad and Gary has been busy over the summer trying to bring in players that can continue to take the club forward.  The team have a lot to live up to this season as the bar was set higher than I could have dreamed of just a few short years ago when we were first awarded our SFA Licence.

In the season just past, we reached the 3rd round of the Scottish Cup for the first time, defeated an SPFL club in a competitive match for the first time, were 7th (or 5th?) in the League and transferred a player into a full-time contract with an SPL club.  The team also delivered one of the best weeks the club has had when they managed to overcome three clubs that finished the season in the top four – and in some style.

The committee at the Strollers put a huge amount of time and effort into the running of the club (thank you!) and that work seems an awful lot easier when the team is performing as well as it did last season.  Our thanks to the coaches and players for their hard work and making the season as enjoyable as it was.

Elsewhere across the club 2 finals were reached.  The 2009 Youth team lost on penalties to Lauderdale while the under 20’s team lost to Dunipace with the last kick of the ball.  Fantastic efforts and my congratulations to all involved for such sterling effort.  My congratulations also go to the 2 victorious sides as I know what they had to do to beat our teams who fought tooth and nail to the end.

We now know that we will have Cowdenbeath and Tranent, as well as 3 guest clubs in the Lowland League next season, so a warm welcome to them all.  We didn’t vote for guest clubs as we feel the pyramid should be respected, but football beats politics and we look forward to welcoming Celtic, Hearts and Rangers as warmly as anyone else to Christie Gillies Park this coming season.  I just hope the ‘jam tomorrow’ on offer of fairer promotion/relegation across the pyramid now comes to fruition.

I look forward to meeting up with many of you over the coming months of the new season.  We are trying our best to keep improving on and off the park and key to that happening is attracting more people to games and making that experience an enjoyable one for you.

Best wishes

Russell