East Kilbride are sweating over the fitness of skipper Craig Malcolm after the striker revealed he may need surgery on a troublesome ankle injury.
The Kilby hitman appears to have shown no ill effects in the opening two games of the season, scoring in a 2-0 win over Dalbeattie Star last midweek and bagging a brace in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Vale of Leithen.
Last season’s Lowland League top scorer could now be forced to miss a chunk of the season, but he has revealed he is determined to play through the problem if possible to help Kilby defend their crown.
Malcolm, who netted 23 league goals last term, said: “My ankle has been bothering me since last year.
“I potentially need an operation and I’m waiting to see what the results of a scan are.
“I’m hoping to nurse it and get round to having the operation at the end of the season if possible.
“I hate missing games and so far I’ve felt no pain. It’s been sore after games but that’s maybe to be expected.
“I’m fortunate we’ve got a great team of physios here and a club doctor who are helping me.
“I’m hoping to find out in the next week, so we’ll see what happens.”
Malcolm missed much of EK’s Betfred Cup campaign due to his injury and was absent from Kilby’s pre-season training as he was on honeymoon with wife Helen.
However, since returning to Stuart Malcolm's side last month he has struck up a fruitful partnership with new signing Ruari Paton.
The 32-year-old added: “I’ve not been feeling fit for all of pre-season and I’m still trying to get back up and running to where I was before.
“But I’ve been fortunate that wee Ruari is doing all the running for me and I’ve been there to score the tap ins.
“He gives us something different to what we had last season, in that he’s got the legs and is a willing runner.
“Ruari works really hard and is going to offer a lot to the team this season.”
The pair will be hoping to keep up the good work on Saturday when Caledonian Braves pay a visit to K-Park.
“It will be good to get back on our home park again after a couple of difficult games on sticky parks,” said Malcolm.
“We’ll be able to get the ball down on Saturday and really up the tempo.
“The Braves have got a lot of dangerous players, but we are aware of that.
“We know (ex-EK player) Ross McNeil will score goals wherever he goes and they have signed Alan Reid from Albion Rovers, so there’s a strong team there.
“But everyone raises their game against us and we will be ready for that.
“We’ve shown already that if we aren’t at 100 per cent we can grind results out.”
Kick-off on Saturday is 3pm.
