East Kilbride YM boss Graeme Robertson has admitted his side will be out to ruin Kyle Lafferty's Saturday night when their former coach returns to Kirktonholme with his new club Forth Wanderers.
The former Rangers striker joined Forth last month, dropping down from the West of Scotland Premier Division to the First Division. Now Lafferty will face the team he coached a few years ago when Forth visit YM for a South Challenge Cup second round tie.
Reunion with former coach
YM gaffer Graeme Robertson brought Lafferty on board in 2019, eight months before the Northern Irishman left Rangers, to help out on his coaching team. While he is looking forward to being reunited, he admits he will be determined to send Lafferty's new side home empty-handed.
Robertson told Lanarkshire Live Sport: “We will hopefully catch up with Kyle on Saturday. It is quite interesting that he’s coming to play us just a couple of games in with his new team.
“It is a nice one for everyone at the club. He was a good coach for us – but we’ll be hoping he isn’t too happy by Saturday night.
“But everyone knows the qualities he has. It doesn’t matter what Kyle Lafferty turns up on Saturday, he will still be a real menace to us. I can guarantee that.
“But it will be a great experience for our players to play against a player of that standard and test themselves against someone of his calibre.
“Most of the boys in our squad were coached by him when he coached our Caledonian League team so most of them will know him and be looking forward to it.”
YM's winning run
Meanwhile, Robertson was delighted to see all their hard work pay off as they swept aside St Anthony’s to stay in touch with local rivals East Kilbride Thistle in the West of Scotland Third Division.
The Kirktonholme side picked up their fourth win in six games on Saturday with a comfortable 3-0 win at Ants, with goals from Cammy McCulloch, Ryan Byrne and Jack Breen delivering the points. While the hosts had a man sent off late on, Robertson said his side were well worth the win before that.
Robertson, whose side are five points behind leaders Thistle after their perfect start over the first six games, told the News: “It was a good performance all round. Everything we worked on during the week came to fruition on the Saturday, which was quite nice for all the coaches who had put the effort in preparing the boys.
“Their red card came with about 10 minutes to go so it didn’t have much of an impact. We were 2-0 up at that time and I felt we were pretty comfortable.
“Our goalkeeper never had a save to make over the whole game so it was a pretty good day for us.
“We scored some really good, well-worked goals so I was really happy with the performance.”
Keeping pace with Thistle
On keeping in touch with Thistle, who defeated Royal Albert 2-0 at the Showpark, he added: “Thistle have done brilliantly.
“Six [wins] out of six for them is an unbelievable start and everyone is looking at them. We just need to keep plugging away and hope something slips with them somewhere.
“We will keep plugging away.”
Saturday’s clash with Forth at Kirktonholme is a 2pm kick-off.
