Gaffer Martin Campbell says freshened-up side is raring to go
Neilston Juniors boss Martin Campbell says his freshened up squad are capable of pushing for promotion this season.
The Brig O’Lea side have made a raft of quality signings over the summer and Campbell hopes his new look team will have what it takes to improve on last season’s seventh place finish in the competitive Central District First Division.
During a busy off-season, the boss has been putting the finishing touches to his squad.
He said: “Compared to last year, we are in a much better place. We didn’t have any players signed going in last year, but this time around we have 16.
“Ten of the players from last season are still with us and we have added six more to make us better.
“We have brought in midfielder Simon McBride, who was at Greenock, striker Paul Stewart, who was with Arthurlie and midfielder Daryl Convery has joined from Arthurlie.
“We’ve also got three lads in from Johnstone Burgh — Connor Milne, Johnny McStay and Gareth Brown. We identified them as their better players, so we spoke to them when the time was right.
“They didn’t really want to go down with Burgh, so we are happy to have them with us.
“So we have done well and made some really good signings.”
Gaffer Campbell is happy that his team will have added experience this year with a number of long-serving junior players joining the ranks.
He added: “This year the players will have a bit more experience with the juniors.
“We had a lot of guys who had only played amateur last season, so it is good to have that bit more experience in the ranks.
“We are also looking at some of our own younger players from the under-21 to see how they get on and we are also looking at bringing in maybe one or two more to help us.”
After a respectable seventh place finish last season, Campbell is looking to improve on that this time round.
“We want to progress each season — that is what the aim of the club is, to keep moving forward and improving,” he said.
“I know every manager will be saying it and we don’t want to get to carried away, but we look at promotion as a possibility.
“I think we finished 17 points behind the promotion places last year and, when we look at some of the silly points we dropped, it was not impossible for us to have reached that total.”
The Farmer’s Boys have a full preseason schedule lined up, with matches against Queen’s Park at Lesser Hampden, Barrhead under-20s and Irvine Meadow among the tune-up clashes lined up ahead of the big kick off.