Citizens arrested
Edinburgh City likely to miss promotion but signs good for future
AT THE TIME OF going to press Edinburgh City’s hopes of a historic promotion to League One appear to have ended with a cruel play-off final defeat to Jim Duffy’s team, Dumbarton.
It’s been a remarkable few years for City since they won the Lowland League in 2016 and beat East Stirlingshire in the play-off final thanks to a late penalty from Dougie Gair which gained them entry into Scottish League two.
Since then they have improved season after season, finishing third in 2018/19 before losing out to Clyde in the play-off semi-final.
This season, City were up against Queen’s Park who more than lived up to their favourites tag and as expected ran away with the title having sold Hampden Park and invested the money in a higher standard of players.
With two games remaining, however, the Citizens were in second place but level on points with Elgin City and Stirling Albion and one ahead of Stranraer, meaning that they could easily have slipped out of the play-off positions at the final hurdle, but they held their nerve and finished best of the rest.
Unfortunately they met on-form Dumbarton who proved too strong after 180 minutes, but City fans are right to be confident going into next season as Sporting Director James McDonagh and manager Gary Naysmith have built an impressive squad, which includes former Hibs’ players Callum Antel, Callum Crane, Danny Handling and Alex Harris plus League 2 Player of the Year Rafa De Vita.
Fans favourite Ouzy See, in his second spell at the club, extended his contract until the end of season 2022/23 as has popular left back Robbie McIntyre who was previously on the books of Rangers and Huddersfield Town, whilst midfielder Danny Jardine has also agreed to extend his deal with the club through to the end of season 2021/22.
Top scorer Josh Campbell, however, is expected to
return to his parent club Hibernian in the summer after an impressive season in the black and white strip.
The Citizens have now played their last home game at Ainslie Park and will be returning to their traditional home of Meadowbank Stadium for the start of season 2021/22 with modern world-class facilities, including a state-of-the-art sports centre with a 500 seat stand in its shadow, alongside
a brand new 4G pitch.
An agreement has been reached in principle with The City of Edinburgh Council and Edinburgh Leisure that would allow the club to build a second stand on the North side of the pitch, subject to obtaining planning permission.
The proposed structure will have both seated and safe standing sections, and will be able to accommodate up to 1500 supporters.