After an eye-opening season racking up thousands of miles in the Highland League, Brechin City are targeting their return to the SPFL.
City’s maiden campaign in the fifth tier of Scottish football granted supporters and officials the opportunity to visit places they had never been.
The club were humbled by the backing they continued to receive from fans throughout the campaign, in which they finished third.
But they are now looking to put their Highland fling behind them.
Highland League lessons
Brechin chairman Kevin Mackie tells Courier Sport lessons have been learned from last season, from players knowing their opponents down to simple logistics.
“Some of the welcomes we received were fantastic,” Mackie said. “We’ve made lots of good friends and met genuinely good people but we were always aware it was going to be difficult.
“The players will have matured a bit for this season as well.
“We visited some great grounds but the conditions from October to March were perhaps different to playing down nearer the Central Belt.
“The guys had to get used to that the further north they went.
“This season we are going in much better prepared.
“Everything from the bus journey in the morning, we’re now familiar with where we are going. We did call a couple of departure times a bit wrong.
“We ended up arriving a bit too close to kick off, which was a fun bit of banter for us at the time.”
Aiming for local talent
On the field, the playing squad looks to be in a vastly better position than this time last year.
With the bulk of the team already in place, the side are looking for just a few more additions.
Brechin have also tailored training arrangements with more locally-based players in the squad.
Andy Kirk’s side will now train twice a week in Dundee, rather than one night at the Oriam and another in the City of Discovery.
Mackie is hopeful that could also attract more locally-based talent to the club.
“Having started with three players at the beginning of July last year, to have finished where we did was an exceptional result,” he said.
“Now, we’re starting with a full squad on the park and a full compliment of subs available from day one.
“We’re trying to get it more local-based. We have signed some local players and we’re moving two nights a week in Dundee which will be helpful.
“That will hopefully help us attract more local players as we continue to move forward.
“That’s an area we’d like to be focusing on through time.
“It’s good to have the lads from the central belt and west coast but not having 90% of the lads having to travel considerable distances every Saturday.”
Sustainable aim
Last year, shortly taking over as club chairman, Mackie set out an ambitious plan to get the side back into the SPFL.
Twelve months on, the plan remains the same and there is the added objective of trying to ensure Brechin City is sustainable.
“It’s most important that we get the club on a sustainable footing. We’re not there yet,” Mackie admitted.
“There are a huge number of positives associated with being in the Highland League. One of the downsides is that we’ve got a bus leaving every away game.
“There is that cost to take everyone up north for every away game, whereas when you were in the SPFL, the majority of games we never used a bus with players making their own way to the stadiums.
“We’ve got a vision ahead now for 12, 24 and 36 months.
“We understand what we are working with but we need to be mounting a challenge to win the league this year.
“That’s the manager’s remit, we need to be up there challenging.”
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