Ants on the march as away trip to Drumchapel starts league campaign
The Ants are on the march as Danny Taylor’s men travel to face Drumchapel United in the Ants first ever league match as a West of Scotland Football League club, with Drumchapel having taken their debut bow in the league the week before, going down 4-0 to Kilsyth Rangers at Duncansfield in their opening fixture. The Ants for their part drew 3-3 with Irvine Victoria in the SoccerShop Challenge Cup, winning 5-3 on penalties in the new management teams first competitive fixture in charge.
The Ants have never faced Drumchapel before as both teams played at different grades, with The Ants being a Junior team and Drumchapel United being an amateur side before both became founding members of the West of Scotland Football league this season, so its a trip into the unknown for both sides. Drumchapel will be looking to put last weeks defeat behind them, and get their home league campaign off to a flier, whereas the Ants will be looking to build on a good performance in the match at Irvine, and will want to get their own league campaign off to the best possible start.
Drumchapel have been busy building a squad for this season with their marquee signing Darian McKinnon the standout signing, having played in the SPFL with Hamilton and latterly Partick Thistle, as well as captain Willie Dyer who had spells at St Johnstone, Morton and Dundee. In preseason they had big wins over Scoutable United (5-1), Arthurlie (7-1) and East Kilbride Thistle (4-1) as well as wins over Benburb (0-1) and Rossvale (3-4). They drew 1-1 with Maryhill and 4-4 with Kilwinning and suffered defeats to Rob Roy (5-1), Johnstone Burgh (1-3) and Darvel (2-0). Theres also a familiar face in the backroom staff with former Ants keeper Jon Connolly on the books as the goalkeeping coach.
The Ants have added a trio of new faces to the squad this week with Jay Burns joining from Forth Wanderers after they withdrew from playing this season, Drew Boult who previously played with Vale of Clyde as well as a spell in Germany with TSV Amicitia Viernheim, and Declan Walsh who has signed on loan from Saltcoats Victoria until Dec 2020 following their withdrawl from the league.
Ants Manager Danny Taylor is looking forward to getting league business finally started after the cup game last week whetted the appetite for competitive football, Speaking to the web team he said “The boys were magic last week in the cup, I was delighted with their attitude, showing great battling qualities which we will need to produce tomorrow again. Although the Ants haven’t played them before, I am well aware of the threat they can pose having faced them in the Amateur game. I am buzzing to finally get the league campaign started and fully expect a tough match, but having said that, theres no easy games in our conference”
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