New dad Jamie Dishington hoping to keep Spartans' play-off pursuit on track

Jamie Dishington has a spring in his step ahead of this afternoon's 340-mile round trip to the Highlands for Spartans' latest League Two clash.

Spartans star Jamie Dishington. Picture: Mark Brown.

The midfielder is viewing the long trek north to Elgin as an ideal opportunity to get some much-needed shut-eye following the birth of son Elliot four weeks ago.

The 27-year-old admits fatherhood has been a shock to the system with sleep deprivation and changing nappies all part of the process.

Nevertheless, he's loving his added responsibilities but will take a break from his duties for a big away day as fourth-placed Spartans look to move a step closer to sealing a play-off berth in their maiden SPFL campaign.

"Becoming a dad has been a big change but it's been good," Dishington said. "I am up throughout the night a couple of times so that can be hard. It's tougher than I expected but the gaffer (Dougie Samuel) has been good with me and not being too hard on myself. It's a different mindset going into training with less sleep so it's been an eye-opener. But I'm getting used to it now.

"It's good to be back in the team after a couple of weeks out due to the birth and then having concussion. You don't want to be missing games, particularly at this stage of the season, and losing momentum or anything like that.

"We're getting close but we can't take anything for granted. Dumbarton and Peterhead are still in there so we just have to keep winning. The play-offs will be difficult so it's something to look forward to if we do manage to secure our spot. We've been up the top end of the table for the vast majority of this season so it would be a disaster now if we didn't make the play-offs. We just need to keep doing our job and not worry about what the other teams do.

"Elgin are really good at home. They're no mugs but we went up there last time and gave a good account of ourselves so I see no reason why we can't do it again."

Former Hibs and Sheffield United striker Marc McNulty got the only goal of the game last weekend as Samuel's men saw off Forfar 1-0 and Dishington added: "It's great to have someone like Marc in the squad. He's always just that one step ahead so you can tell he's played at a much higher level. He was just telling me the other day he's been a professional for 17 years! But we've got a lot of others who have some real good experience too."