Queen of the South boss Allan Johnston is relishing a reunion with Kilmarnock this weekend.
The Doonhamers boss spent five seasons with Killie as a player and left Queens to become the manager at Rugby Park for two years in 2013.
He is hoping a bumper crowd, including travelling supporters, will make it a huge occasion.
Allan said: “I’m sure they’ll be desperate to bounce back into the Premiership after being there for so long.
“We’re allowed away fans which makes it better and adds a bit of atmosphere.
“Kilmarnock are favourites to win the league so it should be a great occasion and a really good game.
“It’s much better having fans. It’s amazing the difference the fans make.
“Last season it was really quiet and there wasn’t much atmosphere and the boys needed to get themselves worked up for a game.
“But when there’s a crowd there it seems to spur them on and hopefully that produces better performances.”
The manager was up the A76 on Monday night as Killie won 2-0 over their rivals Ayr United in their Championship opener.
Johnston highlighted Chris Burke and Innes Cameron as players to watch but admitted his side will have to dig deep to get three points.
He said: “We know they’ve got top players. But we need to produce the performance from the weekend with the energy we showed.”
However, the manager will be watching from the stands after being sent off by Greg Aitken for encroaching onto the pitch last week. The 47-year-old will serve a one match ban but will be keeping a close eye on his opposite numbers going forward.
He said: “There’s hardly any distance at all between the technical area and the pitch. It can quite easily be done so it’s really frustrating getting sent off for that.
“I’ve only ever been sent off three times in my career. Once as a player and twice as a manager. But I’ll learn from it. I’ll be careful not step over the white line. If that’s going to be the rule then there will be a lot of managers getting sent off.”
He added: “But the more concerning things for us were the (refereeing) mistakes made in the game. The second goal - the ball clearly gets kicked out of Josh Rae’s hands. The linesman rules out one of our goals for offside and you can clearly see it’s onside. The linesman gave Partick a goal that the referee then pulled back.
“There were a lot of big mistakes in our game at the weekend so we’re hoping that evens itself out over the course of a season.”
The manager is still trying to bring in players and is looking at the loan market to try and add more bodies to his squad.
Alex Cooper is getting closer to fitness after a calf problem but the club won’t rush the defender back.
There were a couple of knocks picked up in a bounce game with Motherwell this week but those players should be fit for Saturday.
“So he’s as well missing a couple of extra days so he can be available for the remainder of the season.”
