Kilby out to avenge their cup exit to BSC
ANDREW MCGILVRAY
Jim Paterson has told East Kilbride to stand up to BSC Glasgow on Saturday and prove they’re a good team.
The Kilby interim boss says he’s still hurting after last month’s 3-1 Scottish Cup fourth round exit at the hands of Stephen Swift’s men, and says he hopes the players want to rectify that when the Glasgow club arrive at K-Park on Lowland League business.
BSC went 1-0 up inside 47 seconds and were 3-0 up in 39 minutes, and Paterson wants a better performance when they face a team still holding hopes of lifting the title.
“Our other game against BSC this season was really tight, but that time I think the occasion got the better of them,” he said.
“I’m hoping they come up against a different East Kilbride team. The occasion was massive for both teams and I think they handled it better.
“I hope that cup defeat is playing on the boys’ minds when they go into this game, and that they want to rectify what happened – in the first 45 minutes they looked so far in front of us it was incredible.
“They scored in 47 seconds, which dented our confidence and put us on the back-foot and they capitalised – to be honest we were fortunate to be only 3-0 down at half-time.
“But we played them earlier in the season and drew 1-1, and we weren’t even playing that well back then.”
Paterson insists revenge isn’t on his mind, just finishing as high up the league as possible.
He said: “They have a chance to go up, they can pull themselves right back into it, but from my point of view, I want to climb the league table.
“BSC will come here and they will want to beat us, because they can claw back a lot of points if they go on a run, and they are a well-oiled machine – I think people saw that in their performance against Hibs in the fifth round.
“It’s up to us to stand up to that and prove that we’re a good team, and it’s up to me to get us up for it.
“I’m looking for us to climb the league table as hard as possible.”
Paterson says he hopes to land the East Kilbride job on a full-time basis after the cold opened up applications for the position last week, but says he has been bitten by the management bug even if he doesn’t get the nod.
“I feel that I’ve been an assistant, I like coaching, but I’ve always wanted to be the main man,” said Paterson.
“I’ll sit down with the people at East Kilbride. If I get it , I get it, if I don’t, I will be looking to see what is out there.
“There is something about the job that really appeals to me, and they’re desperate to get the club into League Two. I would love a crack at that.”
Kick-off on Saturday is 3pm.