Colin Spence says it’s his duty to bring success back to Meadow Park.
The Irvine Meadow co-boss is gearing up for his second full season in charge and he reckons it’s about time his side start competing at the top again.
The West of Scotland League Premier Division has moved to a 16-team format this season – and Spence admits it’s likely to be one of the most competitive leagues in the country.
He told the Irvine Herald: “It’s a great league, a really strong league when you look at the teams.
“The three teams who came up, it’s fair to say they’re Premier League teams.
“Then other teams have strengthened, they’re going to go for it.
“But we have strengthened too, we’ve brought in good players and I am happy with the squad. We are in a stronger place than we were last summer.
“There’s a bit of pressure on us to get Irvine Meadow back where they should be which is up challenging at the top end of the table, that’s the challenge for us.
“The boys enjoyed winning the tournament at Kilbirnie Ladeside last week, they enjoyed lifting the trophy and that winning feeling.
“So I’ve told them to bottle that feeling and hopefully it won’t be too long until we are lifting more silverware. That’s definitely our aim for the season.”
He continued: “It’s hard to see who will topple Darvel or Auchinleck Talbot to be fair, maybe a team or two will breakout and make it a three or four-horse race.
“But behind those two teams there is a pack, and it’s going to competitive in there and there won’t be a lot between anyone.
“It’s all about getting a good start, there certainly won’t be any easy games. Even when you’re playing a team down the bottom they will still have quality player.
“I reckon anyone on their day will be able to beat anyone. It’s definitely fair to say this will be one of the most competitive leagues in the country, which is incredible to say at tier six.”
Spence is delighted that almost half the league won’t be relegated this season after last year saw eight of the 20 teams go down.
Just two or three teams will face the drop this season, and although Spence is taking nothing for granted, he admits it will be a relief for a lot of teams not having to constantly look over their shoulders.
He said: “It wasn’t nice last season, it was quite hard to enjoy at times.
“One week you’re doing alright, but then two weeks later you’ve had a couple of bad results and you start looking over your shoulder.
“It took until the last couple of weeks to stop having to worry about doing the maths in terms of safety net totals.
“There were a number of teams constantly dragged into it, it was really difficult to enjoy, so hopefully this season will be better in the sense of the league taking shape early, and you don’t have eight teams going down.”
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