Stirling Albion skipper Paul McLean said their 4-1 weekend win over Stranraer felt like a long time coming – and is confident the squad can make its mark on the title hunt.
The 32-year-old former Brechin City defender is embarking on his fourth season with the Forthbank club and is leading a dressing room filled with experienced names and talented youngsters brought in by manager Darren Young in an effort to have the club fighting at the right end.
It comes after a disappointing campaign last time around, which saw the club finish seventh.
But a strong start this season has Albion up in third with the end of the opening quarter of games in sight – with a trip to Forfar up next on Saturday.
Defender McLean said: “We played really well on Saturday and to be honest, it’s felt like that result has been coming for a while.
“If you look at the league in the last few years, there has always been a team running away with it at the top but there’s not an obvious team like that this year and if you put three or four wins together, you can shoot right up the table.
“Dumbarton have done that for the first seven and hopefully we can start to close the gap on them.
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“The target was to reach at least the play-offs and if you look at the squad we have, there are guys who have played League One and Championship so you have that experience and then young players like Kai (Fotheringham) and Harrison (Clark) on loan playing for clubs at a higher level.
“I think the last two or three seasons have been quite stop-start with Covid and last season I had quite a bad injury which ruined my season so I was really concentrating on getting fit.
“The manager has been brilliant to me and the squad since he came in and it feels like a good changing room to be part of and we do feel as if we have a right good chance this year.”
The next challenge is a trip to Station Park to take on the Angus club, who currently sit in eighth after being among the fancied sides to compete in the league this year.
However, the captain issued a note of caution in a league where just a handful of points separate most of the sides. He added: “It’s a tough place to go up there and you don’t know what you’re going to get because the league is so tight.
“We’ll go there confident and hopefully close that gap to the top but it’s the old cliche of taking a game at a time for us because it feels as if you lose one and you’re second bottom, win one and you’re second – that’s just the way it is.”
