Swifts aim for league’s top half

Perthshire Hockey Club’s October kids camp has been hailed a success. Youngsters aged between five and 16 were put through their paces across the three-day coaching, picking up valuable skills and special memories.

The club’s junior convenor, Sally Whytock, was thrilled to see so many smiling faces.

“We try to make it fun but make sure everyone is learning from it as well,”she told the Perthshire Advertiser.

See page 53 for more pictures courtesy of Robbie Preece.

Jeanfield Swifts manager Ross Gunnion is setting his immediate sights on the top half of the table.

The Riverside men sit 10th in the East of Scotland League Premier Division and are not content with their current position.

Boss Gunnion is targeting a positive run of results through to Christmas to provide a platform to kick on further.

He said: “We’ve been a little unfortunate with injuries and there’s not been a game this year where we haven’t been without at least two players who’d be starting.

“While I understand injuries happen and you have to adapt, we’ve been a little more unfortunate than most.

“The target now is to push into the second quarter of the season and get into the top half of the league. Then we can re-evaluate.”

Swifts’ game with Blackburn United was washed out last weekend but they are raring to go for this weekend’s trip to play Musselburgh.

“We managed to get a good training session in on Saturday and it also gave some of our players struggling with injury another week to recover,” said Gunnion.

“We’ll still be without Jamie Reid, Chris Scott and Mark Smith this weekend but Fraser Smith may have a chance of making the squad.

“Musselburgh are a very good team and recently beat Linlithgow Rose 6-2 to emphasise their strength.

“We lost 1-0 there last season in a game we dominated so we’ll need to show a more ruthless streak to come away with anything from the game.

“I feel we’ve been a little unfortunate with some of our games as the performances have merited more points than we’ve currently amassed.

“I’ve no doubt the quality we have will start to be reflected in the results and push us up the table.”