Pre-season sees a busy schedule

Jun 26 2009 by Jeanne Freeman, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

COUPAR Angus and Luncarty are both staging tournaments over the weekend of July 26–27.

This is a first venture in this field for Coupar while it could be said that Luncarty are old hands at the game.

Coupar will have Montrose Roselea who are the North League champions, Kinnoull who, of course, play in the Premier League and Dundee’s U19 team with Coupar making up the quartet of competing clubs. So it certainly has all the ingredients to make it a very attractive and interesting tournament which takes place at Foxhall Park.

The teams competing in the Luncarty tournament are North End, the Dundee side were its winners last season and are returning to defend the Luncarty Social Club Trophy.

The others are North Region side Stonehaven who have played in a number of the previous tournaments and are very popular visitors to Brownlands Park.

Blairgowrie will be making their first appearance and, of course, the Bleachers themselves complete the combatants. This too will, no doubt, be an attractive and interesting tournament.

Coupar Angus and Luncarty both have new team managers taking over. Barry Brittain is Coupar’s new man. He is a member of one of Dundee’s best known footballing families.

Barry is well equipped for his new task at Foxhall Park as he played for many years in the Junior game and while he was with Forfar West End he assisted at the coaching sessions. Barry moved into the management side of the game with the amateur side Elmwood and guided them to a number of successes.

Moving with him to Foxhall Park are coaches Mike Brankin and Kevin Scott. Barry found when he took over at Foxhall Park that there were only five players from the previous season still with the club.

He has certainly put this situation to rights as he has already made 12 new signings. Six of whom have experience in the Junior game, with the others recruited from the amateur ranks and there are more in the pipeline.

Coupar will open their season with an away friendly against Lothian’s side Harthill Royals on Saturday July 18. This will be followed by their tournament and probably a few more friendlies.

John Pearson is the new man in charge at Luncarty. John has been both a coach and manager in amateur football for over 30 years and his expertise could prove to be invaluable for the Bleachers.

Joining John at Brownlands Park will be the coaching duo of brothers Steve and John McLean. Alan Blyth, who is in charge of the Luncarty U19s, will also assist with the training and coaching sessions.

John’s main efforts since taking over at Brownlands Park have been focussed on strengthening the squad. He has already made six new signings with more to follow.

A number of friendlies have been arranged which will him the opportunity to assess a number of trialists that will be taking part. John has no illusions – he knows that he has a big job on hand to lift the Bleachers away from the bottom of the league table position that they finished in at the end of last season but if experience and enthusiasm counts for anything the prospects are good.

There hasn’t been a lot of activity as far as new signings are concerned with the rest of the clubs. They are as follows: Bankfoot have signed former Kinnoull and Luncarty defender Mike Jarmuzeski. Mike started his Junior career with the Bankies. Ross Mitchell has been signed for the Luncarty U19 side.

He is said to be a promising youngster who plays up front. Jeanfield have signed Chris Dudek. Chris who plays in the midfield has joined up at Riverside Park after quite a number of seasons with Luncarty where he had a spell at their skipper.

Scone Thistle manager Derek Adam has made four signings they are Gerrard Kelly from Jeanfield Swifts, this is his second stint with the Thistle. Greg Zaczek and Bob Nairn had lengthy spells with Luncarty before deciding to join Thistle.

Ali Vannett plays as a midfield/forward and has been playing with the Dundee United youth teams and was released at the end of last season and has been snapped up by Derek Adam.

The Scottish Junior AGM was held last Saturday and a motion was passed that there would now be seven substitutes allowed at all games but they would still only be allowed three to be used.

The East Region AGM was held on Tuesday and the following office bearers were re-elected en bloc: president - Harry Lawrie, Fauldhouse; vice-president – Ian Sherlock, Whitburn; treasurer – Chick Spence; general secretary – John Reilly; assistant secretary – Willie Gunn; disciplinary secretary – Alex Hamilton. Spartans FC were admitted to he region and they will play in the South League.

Two of the main items on the agenda were: Firstly, a proposal from Broxburn JFC to restructure the existing league competition. It had been hinted prior to the meeting that there was a chance that it would get the nod.

This however proved to be a real damp squib as it was overwhelmingly rejected by the delegates favour of the status quo.

The main objection being that the additional being that the additional travelling and the costs it would incur was not a viable alternative to the resent set up.

The second proposal was that the League Cup sections in the three competitions which are the DJ Laing, ACCA Sports and the South League Cups, had been in operation for the past two season and were in need of a rehash.

This was met with the general approval by the clubs and the task of drawing up the new sections was delegated to the region secretary John Reilly.

The season will kick off on August 5 with the usual format with the first weeks seeing League Cup games.

The league competitions will commence on Saturday August 29. The draw for the first round of the East of Scotland Cup as it effects Perthshire clubs as follows: Stoneyburn v Luncarty; Jeanfield Swifts v St Andrews; Bankfoot v Armadale; Rosyth v Kinnoull; Oakley United v Coupar Angus; Blairgowrie v Edinburgh United; Scone Thistle v Blackburn.

LUNCARTY JFC – There is training tomorrow at 1pm, meeting at the changing rooms. The club are also on the look-out for unattached players and anyone who is looking for a fresh challenge for next season. If you are interested, come along tomorrow.