Kilby fired up for Spartans clash WE CAN MAKE HISTORY
East Kilbride assistant boss Craig Young reckons the chance to make history at Spartans on Saturday can inspire his players to victory in their crunch clash.
League leaders Kilby travel to third place Spartans in the knowledge that they have never won at Ainslie Park.
But the defending champions can ill-afford to slip up again as they also battle it out with BSC Glasgow for the title.
Spartans are six points adrift of Billy Stark’s side with four games in hand, while BSC are four behind with a game in hand.
On their five previous trips to Edinburgh, Kilby have earned four draws and suffered one defeat.
But that record doesn’t faze Young, now in his second spell at K-Park, ahead of such a huge match.
He said: “As a football club, we’ve broken new ground every season – from winning trophies to our winning runs – so there’s no reason we can’t go out and create another bit of history on Saturday.
“And that’s the message Billy and I will be putting forward to the players.
“I don’t know if it’s a must-win game because I think that there will still be a few twists and turns in the title race, but we certainly can’t afford to lose it.
“Spartans have a lot of games to play in a short space of time and we’ve still to go to BSC Glasgow.
“But there’s no point underplaying it - this is the biggest game of the season.
“We are playing well, defensively we’ve been really good and we’ve closed the gap in terms of our goal difference.
“There’s a lot of the confidence in the team and we will look to tap into that.”
Kilby warmed up for the battle of the league’s big guns with a 3-0 win at home to Gala Fairydean.
New signing Bryan Prunty made his debut as a penalty double from Adam Strachan and Ross McNeil’s 17th goal of the season delivered a vital three points.
Gaffer Billy Stark said: “We all know the magnitude of the Spartans game, but Saturday against Gala was just as big.
“Every game in this final third of the season is going to be tough for all of the teams involved at the top of the table. But we need to be positive and have confidence in our players.
“Spartans have games in hand, but they will have to deal with the games coming thick and fast for the rest of the season, while we have points on the board.”
Kick-off at Ainslie Park is 3pm.