Winter questions EK stay after club’s dismal season
Star says ex-gaffer got balance wrong this term
PAUL THOMSON
Sean Winter reckons former boss Stuart Malcolm failed to get the balance right at K-Park this season and their dismal campaign has left him pondering his future at the club.
Yes, it’s only February, but with the league gone, their Scottish Cup campaign ending with a whimper under caretaker boss Jim Paterson and performances leaving fans deflated, the 2019/20 season will go down as the most disappointing in the club’s history.
Asked where it’s all gone wrong for Kilby, Winter believes the manner of the 5-1 aggregate defeat to Cove Rangers in last season’s play-offs had the club spooked and Malcolm, who left in November to manage League One Forfar, went too far with his rebuild job in the summer.
Winter told the News: “I was involved at the start of the season, talking to the manager about the things we needed to do after winning the league last year.
“We were miles away from Cove, so it was about continuing the good parts of last season and adding where we had to.
“We knew Kelty were going to come at us this season and Bonnyrigg would be strong, but I think we had too much of a fresh start.
“We had so much success last year trying to play football the right way and we had a lot of nice football players, but we lacked a bit of dig.
“And that was apparent in the Cove game, where they were in our faces and that was the first time we came up against a team with that quality and attitude.
“I think Stuart Malcolm maybe went too far. He let too many players go and then started to bring in more players with the attributes to try and fight to win games.
“So I think maybe the balance has been wrong.
“Since Jimmy came in, we definitely are playing better.
“We’ve got a wee spark and we are starting to score more goals, but then we have lapses where we play like we did against BSC and you feel like you are back to square one again.
“Ultimately, there’s a combination of things that have gone wrong at the same time.
“I still think we’ve got the most experienced squad in the league, but something just hasn’t clicked this year.”
It’s now almost five years since Winter arrived at K-Park from Stranraer, bidding to take his hometown team to promotion.
But with a series of failed attempts on his CV, it has left the winger wondering if he joining EK was the right move.
He revealed: “I’m already thinking about if I should give it a go again next season and see if we can finally do this.
“If East Kilbride don’t go up, for me I’d look at it as a failure and I’ll question the decision to come here in the first place. When I first came here I was really excited about the plans.
“I’m born and raised in East Kilbride and that means so much more to me than playing for a Stranraer or going to an Airdrie.
“It just means more doing it for your hometown team because when I look back, and I’m retired, I can say EK are part of the football league and I was part of it.
“That was what I came here to do. “But it’s not dead in the water.
“We are still going to be there or thereabouts next season, but it’s hard to think about right now because it has been such a disaster.”
For now, EK will look to the South Challenge Cup and Football Nation Cup for some kind of success, but the big focus is already on next season and an eighth campaign in the Lowland League.