Danny Handling loving his life at Edinburgh City

Danny Handling, left, is revelling in the positive attitude at Ainslie Park

Danny Handling insists he’s loving life at Edinburgh City and is excited about the prospect of helping the ambitious Capital club climb the divisions in the years ahead.

Following a difficult few years after leaving Hibs, the midfielder has got his career back on track at Ainslie Park, where he has been a regular starter so far this term under his former Easter Road youth coach James McDonaugh.

The 25-year-old, who was badly hit by injuries in his early 20s, is City’s top scorer with nine goals and has been a key man in their strong start to the season. They currently sit two points behind League Two leaders Cove Rangers and Handling is revelling in the positive vibe coursing through the club which he joined in the summer.

“Edinburgh City as a club are going places,” he told the Evening News. “What the gaffer and the chairman are trying to do is something I want to be a part of. It’s a really good set-up and I’m happy to be here. I’d actually find it hard to leave Edinburgh City now because it’s so close to home, I know so many of the players and other people around the club, and everything’s set up for us to do well. It’s a long-term process but we’re getting better every week. We just need to get out of this league, which is our first aim, and after that there’s nothing to stop Edinburgh City going where they want to go.

“The gaffer has shown a lot of faith in me and has always been interested in what I’ve been doing ever since we worked together at Hibs. He’s probably getting the benefit of that now because this is the best run I’ve had for a long time in terms of staying fit and scoring goals. It’s just been a really good project, if you like, to be part of.”

City have boosted their promotion bid in recent weeks with back-to-back wins over Cove and Annan. They visit Stirling Albion tomorrow. “We’ve had hard games recently and we’ve got a few hard games to come with Stirling, Cowdenbeath and Elgin. It’s been a hard month but we’ve come out a big chunk of it unscathed. We’ve taken six points from two massive games against Cove and Annan who are both good teams. We knew we had to win both of those games and it sends out a message that we’ve done that. I think after we lost 5-0 to Cove at the start of the season, a lot of people ruled us out and saw Cove as runaway winners so hopefully we’ve put a marker down and let people know that the title race isn’t over. We’ve still to play Cove twice – there’s a lot of football still to be played so I hope we can maintain the form we’re in. On paper, we’ve probably got the strongest team in the league. We’ve probably not played as well as we’d have liked in our last two games but we’ve managed to get the points.”