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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Andy McGilvray

East Kilbride Thistle underachieved, says coach as curatin falls on Conference C campaign

East Kilbride Thistle coach John Lennox says his side ‘slightly underachieved’ this season, but still did well to finish 11th in the West of Scotland League Conference C.

Ten-man Thistle played out their final league game on Saturday, with a 3-2 defeat at home to Vale of Clyde in which David McKean netted both of Thistle’s goals.

The defeat means the Showpark club will start in Division Three next season, but Lennox says it wasn’t the easiest of starts to the campaign, with boss Iain Diack leaving for Rossvale.

With neither co-bosses Alan Paterson or Russell Craig available, Lennox and Colin Hutchison took the team for their last 90 minutes this term.

Lennox said: “They were 2-0 up and were probably the better team in the first half, but we pulled it back to 2-2.

“In the second half we were slightly the better team, we were trying to play football and build from the back, whereas they were more direct – for some reason, teams in this league want to play long balls.

“I thought we shaded the game, but not the result.”

On the season overall, Lennox said: “I think we slightly underachieved, but at the same time we did really well.

“It was through individual errors that we got beat, it was our own downfall, throwing away a point here, three points there.

“Personally, I think we went in there, we knew it was going to be hard.

“I’ve been in juniors all my days, I was at Hearts for 15 years, and Hamilton Accies, so I know all about it.

“We matched all the top teams, those round about us tended to pick up points against us, but if you look at the table, there’s only something like five or six points’ difference from us being in another league.

“We could have been one or two places higher up, but at the start of the season we didn’t look at that – we looked to get off the bottom of the league and win games.”

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