Calum Elliot on transformation of Tynecastle FC - 22 points clear and 16 wins from 16

Calum Elliot is taking nothing for granted

Tynecastle boss Calum Elliot has produced an unbeaten side with the simple message of ‘keep it going’ as they bid to maintain the high standards they have set so far and take their incredible start in 1st Division Conference B into the second half of the season.

The Meggetland club toiled in last season’s one-off Conference B after the influx of Junior clubs and failed to make it into the newly formed Premier Division as they ended the campaign fourth from bottom.

However, they have so far risen to the challenge of getting back into the top tier with a stunning 16-game winning run, scoring 101 goals, which sees them command a 22-point lead at the top of the table.

“The boys are doing really well,” said Elliot, ahead of hosting Kinnoull tomorrow. “They did well in pre-season and they just took it into the new season and we’ve just kicked on from there.

“It’s a more competitive league and it’s more of a level playing field [this season]. I always said last season it was difficult to judge the players on the teams we were playing because it was fairly uneven. We still had to figure out which boys would come with us for this season, so everybody got the opportunity to do that. There was some boys who were probably some of our better players last season but they didn’t fit into how what we wanted to play.

“I wouldn’t say there is a massive change in the playing squad, there is just a couple of boys who have come in that have helped us in terms of experience. The younger boys that probably weren’t ready for it last season have grown from that experience and have kicked on this year. There is probably a better balance to the squad now.”

Elliot says the fantastic start is simply down to hard work, as he continued:

“It’s just been hard work. The boys know that if they don’t work hard they aren’t going to play. You can accept mistakes, you can accept players sometimes not being at their absolute best but you can’t accept boys not giving everything they’ve got on a Saturday. If they do that, it gives us a chance of winning games of football and thankfully, at this moment in time, we’ve been winning quite a few games. Everybody has embraced what we’ve been after.

“We don’t go into every game expecting to win, every game has been hard. The boys have done well up to this point, but we haven’t achieved anything yet. It’s not even half way through the season and we are now getting to a critical point where there is a lot more to come from then. We still have four or five players that have been injured, and we have one or two who haven’t probably done as well as expected. On the other hand, there is boys who have exceeded expectations.

“I expect us to be stronger come the turn of the season. The boys know they need to keep their standards high because we do have a good squad where if boys aren’t playing well then we can rotate and give other boys an opportunity to come in.”