LOWLAND LEAGUE KICK-OFF SPECIAL PREVIEW:
Winter urges Kilby to hit the ground running
Sean Winter insists a fast start is vital for East Kilbride’s Lowland League title dreams.
East Kilbride lost once and drew three times in their opening 10 league games last season on their way to relinquishing the trophy they won in 2017 to Spartans.
And with the calibre of opposition tougher than ever, Winter knows they can ill afford a similar set of circumstances.
While Kilby have made some impressive signings, including Jamie Longworth from Alloa and Craig Reid from Ayr, rivals Spartans, BSC Glasgow and East Stirling are also much stronger.
There’s also the added headache of Kelty Hearts coming into the set-up as something of an unknown quantity following their promotion from the East of Scotland League.
More than ever before, there’s little margin for error.
So after the, ultimately, costly slow start under Billy Stark last season, the pressure is on new boss Brian Kerr to start strongly.
“We struggled to get the best formation and the best personnel until we were nine or 10 games in last season, so that’s something we’ve been trying to address,” said Winter, entering his fourth season at K-Park.
“We’ve played a lot of preseason games [eight] to help us get used to the new manager and his style of play, which is obviously different to Billy [Stark] last season.
“It’s important that everybody buys into it from the very first game and we hit the ground running. In preseason, we haven’t played our best football yet, but we’ve been grinding results out and that is the sign of a good team.
“Pre-season has been really tough. The boys have been in four days a week for the last few weeks and I believe we are more than fit enough, it’s just about putting everything together and winning that first game.
“If we can put a run of three or four wins together in the opening games and then see how everyone is looking, that will be a good place to go from.
“When we won the league [in 2016/17], we were 10 points clear of East Stirling by Christmas and, even although we had a wee dip, that was too big a gap for them to make up.
“So it’s massive for us to start well because there’s a lot of games early on.”
Kilby face nine games in the first five weeks across all competitions and it all kicks-off at home this weekend.
Saturday’s opponents, Selkirk, finished fifth last season and will pose a good opening test for the bookmakers’ favourites.
However, Winter reckons if they play to their potential, EK should come away with all three points.
He added: “Selkirk had a good season last year and, if they’ve managed to keep most of the squad, I’m sure they’ll take points off of teams.
“Having said that, we’ve got as strong a squad as we’ve ever had in my time at the club.
“If we turn up with the players we’ve got, I would say, on paper, we’ve got too much for any team in this league.
“But we’ve got to go and prove that with results.”
Kick-off on Saturday is 3pm.