The new South of Scotland League season is set to start two weeks early.
Officials agreed to kick things off on Saturday, July 17, at Monday night’s AGM.
It had been thought games would begin at the end of July as usual but the date has been brought forward, partly because no games have been played at all in 2021 due to the bad weather being followed by lower league football being suspended as a result of rising coronavirus cases.
With the league being the priority, it will be at least a couple of months until local cup competitions take place.
And the first two rounds of the SFA South of Scotland Challenge Cup – which also involves clubs from the Lowland, East and West of Scotland leagues – will be regionalised due to the number of clubs taking part.
Although the start date has only just been confirmed, some clubs began training last month to prepare for the big kick-off.
St Cuthbert Wanderers boss Jordan Williamson said: “We have been back in training for the last four weeks. We started with the non-contact just to get the boys back into training. We have a lot of new faces but a lot of the boys hadn’t seen each other for a while either.
“Now we are able to do the contact training so we’re in Wednesday and Saturday and will be doing that for the next three weeks until the Euros.
“We’ll tailor the training when the Scotland games are on because it’s been so long we can’t deny the boys the chance to watch their home nation!”
Saints are also working on plans for a number of pre-season friendlies at St Mary’s Park which hasn’t been able to welcome supporters for more than a year.
Williamson added: “We have friendlies arranged to act as a showcase for the fans.
“There are a lot of players they don’t know because it’s been so long - they will have read the name but they might not know where they play or how they play.”
