EK Thistle co-boss Alan Paterson says the shackles will be off his side when they tackle top flight side Glenafton Athletic in the West of Scotland League Cup this weekend.
And he insists his side should have no fear of putting in a performance, given they’ve already caused a cup shock this season when they knocked Broughty Athletic out of the Junior Cup back in August last year.
The Jags are set to play host to the Premier Division side in a second round fixture that has been moved to K-Park - home of Lowland League EKFC - to give it the best chance of going ahead.
Paterson’s men were sidelined at the weekend when a waterlogged Showpark forced their WOSFL Conference C clash with Larkhall Thistle to be postponed, and that will also aid his side’s efforts.
He said: “Glenafton is one of those games we can go into with the shackles off. Nobody is expecting us to do anything.
“It will be similar to Broughty Athletic for us. We’ll go there and enjoy the occasion, see what happens.
“You want glamour ties, you want to be tested against the best. We are playing one of the big names in Junior football, with a strong pedigree. They’ll fancy going pretty far in the cup so all we can really do is try and give a good account of ourselves.
“It will give the younger boys a chance to experience what it takes to play at the top at this level as well.”
On Saturday’s postponement, he added: “It was disappointing that the game was off. The park was frozen all of last week and the park was looking really good on Friday, but that downpour on Saturday just killed it.
“It was the right decision, especially when you look at the weather the rest of the day. It only got worse.
“We’ve got some amount of games to catch up on, that’s the only thing.
“But the good thing is we have guys who are getting over niggling injuries. We’ve still got Jordan Hutchison out with a knee injury but Cole McIntyre trained last Thursday and would have been available on Saturday.
“It would have been a high risk playing him but now he’s got a further week of training and he’ll have a better chance of playing this weekend.”
Saturday’s clash is a 3pm kick-off rather than the usual 2pm start for West of Scotland League games.
If the game goes ahead kids will also be admitted for free and they can help cheer the Jags on.
Paterson added: “The game is getting moved to K-Park because the forecast isn’t looking good.
“It will give us the best chance of getting the game on.
“Apart from Petershill [a 6-1 defeat], we’ve performed to a decent level against top teams this season so hopefully we can do that again.
“We’ve not got anything to fear.”
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