Hawick Royal Albert manager Kenny Aitchison celebrating first competitive win at club at 21st time of asking

That long-awaited victory was a 3-2 knockout of East of Scotland Football League second division survival rivals Edinburgh United in the King Cup’s first round at home at Albert Park on Saturday.

Greg Ford scored two of Albert’s goals, on 11 minutes and 57, and Hon-To To got the other nine minutes into the second half, with Cameron Young and Declan Paterson on the scoresheet for their visitors.

Saturday’s victory comes 17 games into Aitchison’s second spell in charge of Albert, having recorded 13 losses and three draws beforehand since returning in July and losing all four matches of his previous tenure in 2017.

Besides being a win at the 21st time of asking for their new gaffer, it ended a 27-game wait for victory for the club, their last one, under previous boss Jordan Ainslie, having been back in February, against the same opposition in the same cup, by 4-3 away after extra time.

Aitchison is now hoping there’ll turn out to be more wins where that one came from as he looks ahead to a cup run, fellow second division side Ormiston Primrose away being their second-round opposition on a date yet to be confirmed, as well as trying to get the Royalists off the foot of the table and out of the danger zone.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Aitchison told us.

“There’s an element of relief, I guess, as before the game I was thinking that if we didn’t manage it, we could go to Christmas without having had a win since pre-season in the summer.

“It was nice to get it, of course. The main benefit will just be that it’ll give the team a wee bit of confidence.

“We probably didn’t play as well as we had done previously. It sounds silly to say but we’ve played better and lost games, so it’s good that we managed to see the game out and get the result.

“It certainly was nervy once Edinburgh got a goal back to make it 3-2 and I’ve had some feedback from players that they didn’t believe they’d see the game through because they’ve been in the same situation so many times before but we defended really well from then on, in all fairness.

“We made it difficult for ourselves, I guess, as we often do, but we saw it out and the guys are obviously very pleased.

“It’s the first competitive game I’ve won at Albert Park since playing against Hawick so it means a lot.”

Though glad to have broken his duck at last, Aitchison says he was always confident a win was on the way so he wasn’t too surprised once one finally arrived.

“I think we’d just been a wee bit unlucky and we could well have got more points than we have,” he said.

“What the win will do is give us a wee bit of belief.

“It’s always easier when you get the first one. I’ve been in clubs in similar sitiations in the past and it’s really hard to see that first win out because there’s always that lack of belief and lack of experience of doing that.

“We’d played Edinburgh before and we got beat 1-0 even though we created more chances in that game. This time round, we were just really clinical and the players showed their qualities in front of goal.

“We probably shouldn’t have conceded any goals – they were both a bit sloppy – so there are still problems there. Obviously they could recur so we’ve still got work to do.

“Cup ties do come with a little bit less pressure. I thought we’d win this game before it – I was quietly confident – and the guys won despite not playing their best, so that’s a good thing as well.”