Pitch upgrade could see Jags use K-Park
Iain Diack says EK Thistle getting things right off the pitch will help them on it next season – but that journey will need to start away from the Showpark.
Diack’s vision is starting to take shape, with a pathway set up that is designed to take youth players to the first team, new dressing rooms, and the pitch will be lifted in two months’ time to fix a drainage problem.
All of that is designed to provide a more professional outlook at the
Showpark, and might attract a better standard of player.
But Thistle will need to start next season with home games played elsewhere, such as K-Park, or just away from home for the first few weeks. Either way, Diack reckons it’s worth it. He said: “Things are going pretty well. We’ve had the news that the pitch and stuff is getting done, and all the things like that on the club front are going well.
“The work is getting started on that in the first week of June, they’ll be lifting the pitch, and then we’ll be able to get back on it in the last week of August.
“I would imagine we’ll either have to start our season maybe playing at the K-Park or we’ll start just playing away fixtures for the first month and a bit.
“That wouldn’t bother me, that would be fine. The club are trying our best to get these things done and they have worked extremely hard.
“To get that change happening is going to be brilliant for the club in the long-run, and we’ve been working away getting the youth categories set up to make a pathway to the first team, trying to make the club, on a whole, more professional. If we get it right off the pitch, it helps us on the pitch.”
The Jags boss is also hoping that with a better surface, it will make the Jags a more attractive proposition to youngsters when the once heavy and bobbly pitch is spruced up.
He added: “We can shop in a certain market, but my vision for the club is to bring youth players through, give players who have maybe been released by other senior clubs a chance to come into our system, to bring them through.
“Take them to the Showpark and if the pitch is brilliant and we have new dressing rooms, there’s a platform for them to prove themselves. That gives us a wee helping hand in maybe signing a better standard of player as well.”