Hawick Royal Albert hoping to pick up first points of season against Craigroyston at weekend

Hawick Royal Albert manager Kenny Aitchison watching his side playing Syngenta earlier in the season (Photo: Scott Louden)

Hawick Royal Albert manager Kenny Aitchison is looking forward to playing one of his old sides, Craigroyston, this weekend as he reckons it’ll be the Borderers’ best chance yet to pick up their first points of the new East of Scotland Football League second division season.

The Edinburgh side, managed by Aitchison for a couple of months last year, are only seven points and six league places better off than basement side Albert, having played three games more, so he’s hoping Saturday’s game, kicking off at home at Albert Park 2.30pm, will see his hosts narrow that gap.

“They’re a different team to the one I had last year as they’ve been through a phase of rebuilding and they’ve started the season fairly well,” he said.

“It should be a good game and I think we’ve got a better chance of winning than we’ve had in previous weeks, so we’ll be going out there trying to get a result.

“It’s a game, especially at Albert Park, that I think we have a chance to win.

“Every other game we’ve played so far I guess we’ve been underdogs by quite a margin. Craigroyston would probably be favourites to win, based on their current league position, but I think we’ve got a much better chance to get something out of it than we’ve had so far.

“When we saw the league fixture list come out, the first two games, against Stirling University and Ormiston Primrose, I thought we’d have a chance if things started to click, but unfortunately they didn’t at the time, then we had Heriot-Watt Uni, Syngenta, Blackburn United and Carnoustie – all really tough teams – in cups and in the league so we were looking a bit further ahead to get our first points on the board.”