East Kilbride head to leaders Bonnyrigg Rose in a massive Lowland League clash this weekend – and boss Chris Aitken hopes their “disgraceful” pitch has improved since the sides last met.
Rose lead the way at the summit and are currently 11 points clear of 11th place Kilby, who have two games in hand.
Victory for Aitken’s side would be a huge boost in their bid to kick-start their season and claw back some of the gap following a ropey start to the campaign, which saw his brother Stevie resign in August.
The sides last met at New Dundas Park in November 2020 when Rose claimed a 2-1 win, but Aitken was far from enamoured with the surface on his last visit.
And ahead of Saturday’s meeting, he said: “We are ready for it and we’ll prepare for what is going to be a tough game.
“They are a good team and they’ll be set up well.
“Their park might be questionable because when we went there last year, it was the worst I’d seen in the last 20 years in football.
“It was absolutely disgraceful.
“But we’ll need to overcome that challenge and hopefully we go there on Saturday and get a positive result.”
Kilby have lost to Rose in all three of their previous meetings in the fifth tier and Aitken says his side must also be able to cope with the demands of needing a result this weekend.
A recent shock defeat at home to Cumbernauld Colts has left them with a mountain to climb, but a first win over Rose would be timely in their quest to get back into the title race.
”In all my time in football, I’ve yet to see leagues won in September/October, but we know how big the game is,” Aitken admitted, whose side beat Coldstream 10-1 in the Scottish Cup on Saturday.
“We know everyone will be thinking: ‘East Kilbride need to go and win’.
“That’s part and parcel of it because of the start we’ve had, but it’s up to us to go and manage that.
“We are in a good run of form.
“We’ve won seven out of our last six games, we are scoring a lot of goals, so we go into it in the best possible way.”
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