Penicuik Athletic fully prepared for EoS opener despite lack of time to prepare

Penicuik and the rest of the EoS kick off on Saturday

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s statement on Wednesday introducing new restrictions included a ban on contact sports for over 18s across the central belt except professional sports. However, an SFA notice on Thursday night confirmed the East of Scotland can proceed with their start this weekend as planned.

“We were waiting on what the definition of professional was,” said Begg. “Was it only the clubs doing the testing or was it down to whether players are on professional contracts, and everyone at our level is under professional contracts.

“We came back as soon as we were allowed to train and we’ve played six pre season friendlies. We’ve effectively just done a full pre season and we are absolutely ready to go for Saturday.

“The boys were all brilliant during lockdown - we had Zoom calls and quizzes, and one of the players Paul Tansey is into high intensity training so he took that once a week for the players. We just tried to mix it up and keep everybody engaged, but the boys did brilliant just to get through that. I don’t think people quite appreciate the mental health impact of not being able to play football and not being able to interact with your teammates on a personal level rather than over Zoom. You could feel the relief from everybody when we were allowed to go back and do contact training.”

With last season’s campaign being cut short in March, like other leagues, the final placings for the East of Scotland were decided on an average points per game basis, meaning Penicuik finished in eighth due to having several games in hand.

Although he’s not any targets for the new campaign, ahead welcoming a new-look Broxburn - who appointed centre-back Chris Townsley as manager in May after former boss Brian McNaughton stepped down - to Penicuik Park, Begg’s main aim is to improve on where they finished last season.

He continued: “All we can do is treat it as if it’s going to be a normal season, we can’t prepare for something that is going to be stop start, we have to prepare like we are going to play 34 games. I haven’t spoke to the players about targets and I haven’t set them any targets. We’ve spoken about last season, and we had some real highs last season, particularly in the Scottish Cup, but we were all disappointed with our league form and I think in the end we finished eighth. It is a must do better target for us this season, certainly in the league.

“It is a real mouthwatering game for the opening of the season. I think Townsley will do well, he’s made some good signings. I know Jack Beesley [assistant manager/player] really well, we worked at the SFA together for a while so it will be nice to see him again, I just hope I am the one smiling at the end of it!”