Paul Woods insists East Kilbride face a tricky start to their Lowland League campaign after being handed an away trip to Stirling University.
The Students have a decent record against Kilby in recent years, having won twice and drawn with the K-Park side in their last five league meetings, including a win that denied EK the title on the final day of the 2017/18 season.
So Woods is under no illusions that their clash at the Falkirk Stadium on October 10 will be straightforward.
After the fixtures were announced earlier this week, the midfielder said: “Stirling have always been tricky for us in the past and I think the league is getting better and better with the quality coming in across the league.
“But we are more of a scalp this year than ever before with guys like Chris Erskine and Paul Paton coming in to our team, so we to make sure we start well.
"The gaffer has already spoken about that and we need to.
“It’s something that we didn’t do last season and you think it will be okay, it will turn out fine, but it didn’t and before you know it, we were playing catch up.
"That takes its toll on you.
“To be honest, I don’t think it would have mattered who we got in the first game, it was always going to be tough and I think it’s going to be like that through the whole season.
“The only thing is Stirling play on a good park and that will be a good place to open up the season. Hopefully, we go there and hit the ground running.”
With the league cramming a full 32-game season in a shorter time frame, including a double header round over the festive period, Woods added: “At least we are local, that’s the only good thing playing games over Christmas, but there a few games close together at that time.
“When you look at what we want to achieve, you have to take these games as they come and make sure you are good enough to get through it.”
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