BEN RAMAGE
Glenvale FC boss John Kelly insists it was a proud moment for the club to learn they’d be bringing West of Scotland Football League action to Paisley.
The Vale have had an amateur team and several youth sides for many years but never entered into the semi- professional level formerly known as the Juniors.
They’ve now had their application to join the Scottish professional pyramid system accepted, with the club set to join other new entrants – including fellow Paisley outfit St
Peter’s – in the new WoSFL Club Development Division that’s set to kick off in July.
Kelly admits he struggled to get to sleep the night he learned the club’s application was successful because his phone simply wouldn’t stop buzzing with congratulatory messages.
Kelly told Express Sport: “It’s been a stressful couple of months,as it’s taken a long time to find out whether we’d be accepted or not.
“We actually sat down in October last year and decided it was worth a shot in applying. We had nothing to lose at the end of the day.
“Renfrewshire Leisure agreed to allow us to play at Ferguslie Sports Centre, which is where our home games will be, and we’re honestly just buzzing to get started now.
“We’re delighted to be in the set up and there’s never been a team from Paisley as long as I can remember.
“There’s obviously Johnstone Burgh, Renfrew and Neilston nearby, but it’s great to have a team fully based in the town.
“It was a huge buzz the night we found out. That night I didn’t get to sleep until 4am, my phone was red- hot with all the congratulations coming through.
“We’ve not had proper football for over a year now, so it’ll be superb to be back to competitive football again in July.”
Glenvale will begin their WoSFL journey in the Club Development Division, and will eventually move up to the new Division 2 when the current conference set up finishes at the end of the season – regardless of where they finish.
That move will ensure the league body can check every new club can fulfill their fixtures and manage their finances correctly over the course of their first campaign.
Kelly, who was formerly St Anthony’s manager, is adamant Glenvale will stick to their youth philosophy, which is currently the cornerstone of the club’s success with several youth teams still running.
He said: “All the new clubs are going into the development division and, thankfully, we don’t have to win our division to get out of it.
“It’s a bit of a dress rehearsal for all the new clubs. There’s a few amateur ones joining up who the league are maybe not sure how they’ll stick to the criteria.
“We meet a lot of the criteria already, so the first year for us is going to be a building process.
“We were always going to go down the youth development path, because that’s our philosophy.
“We’ve got a good amateur side so a lot of players will make the step up from that. “Ultimately for us it’s about providing a pathway for young players in Ferguslie and Paisley.
“Ferguslie is often classed as one of the most deprived places in Scotland, but there’s such a strong community here and we want to be an even bigger part of it.
“The more young kids we can get in the better.
“With the pyramid system, there’s no reason why they couldn’t keep working their way up the ladder.”
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