Thistle can play part in creating a famous double

the Scottish Cup. The Grantown club’s new manager Gordon Nicolson is taking nothing for granted, despite picking up four points and pushing Highland League champions Cove Rangers all the way in recent weeks.

Nicolson said: “We are on a good run of form, although l’m more pleased with the performances than the results.

“It’s only four points we’ve taken from the last three games.

“We have just had one win, Saturday’s 2-0 victory at Keith, but those points have seen us move up into 15th place in the Highland League table, so we’ve got to be happy with that.

“Although we got the win at Keith last weekend, the performance probably wasn’t as good as those in our two previous games, a 1-1 draw against Formartine United, and a 3-2 defeat by Cove Rangers, also at home.”

Looking forward to the Coldstream tie, Nicolson added: “I suppose the first thing you want in cup-tie football is a home game and we’ve got that.

“You also want to avoid the so-called big guns and, with no disrespect to Coldstream, we’ve also managed to do that but, to be fair, they’re probably thinking exactly the same thing.

“I think it will be a good cup tie and a fairly even one, we’ve certainly done our homework on them but I don’t know if they’ve been able to send anyone up to take a look at ourselves.

“After recent encouraging performances we should go into the game with a bit of confidence but you certainly can’t take anything for granted as we’ve never reached the second round before.”