Rutherglen Glencairn go into the unknown on Saturday when they clash with Gartcairn for the first time, but boss Willie Harvey is only concerned about how his side plays.
Glencairn welcome the Airdrie club to the Hamish B. Allan Stadium for their West of Scotland League First Division curtain-raiser, hoping to get off to good start in what is likely to be a tough league.
But Harvey says worrying about opposition teams only leads to over-complications.
He said: “We know their players, and their management set-up, how they played last season and things like that, so we have an idea.
“But I’ve always been a great advocate that I don’t concern myself about other teams, because then you start to muddle yourself up a wee bit, instead of sticking to what you want to do, and letting other teams worry about you.
“That’s why when we were in the Scottish Junior Cup I never used to go and watch teams unless we got to the quarter-finals or semi-finals.
“This is the way we play. Why change it to try and counter-act, because if you’re doing that all it does is nullifies them.
“We’ll play our own shape, and have a go at it.
“Otherwise you’re just mixing your own players up, and they’re thinking ‘they don’t know their own shape, or what shape we’re going to play’.
“We’ll stick to our own shape, and let Gartcairn worry about us.”
Glencairn ended their pre-season programme with a 3-1 home defeat to Beith last Wednesday, but followed that up with a 2-0 win over Third Division side East Kilbride Thistle to win the Hamish B. Allan Centenary Cup on Saturday, with goals from Jack McIlveen and Isaac Frain.
Harvey said: “Pre-season went reasonably well. We had some good tests against Premier League clubs in Cambuslang and Cumnock, Cumbernauld from our own league and Beith, who are in the Premier League.
“We let ourselves down a wee bit against Beith, but it’s pre-season so I’m not going to read too much into it.
“In the first 30 minutes we were as good as I’ve seen us all pre-season, scored a goal and then it was as if we ran out of legs.
“For the next 60 minutes we were chasing shadows and weren’t on the mark.
“But we got them back in, spoke about it, and we settled ourselves back down for the game against East Kilbride Thistle.”
Harvey is relishing the challenge in this season’s First Division, but says it will be tough.
He said: “You’ve got seven ‘Premier League teams’ right away, and in the next three divisions the teams that were second, third and fourth, so there aren’t really any weak links.
“You’ve got teams in there like Gartcairn, Shotts, Thorniewood, Drumchapel who are strong, and Johnstone Burgh are a decent outfit that have grown in stature in recent years.
“There are a lot of strong teams and it’s going to be a really difficult league to get out of.”
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