Hawick Royal Albert up against survival rivals in King Cup

Hawick Royal Albert manager Kenny Aitchison, left, during his side's 4-4 draw at home to Lochgelly Albert earlier this month (Pic: Steve Cox)

Hawick Royal Albert manager Kenny Aitchison reckons his side’s cup tie against Edinburgh United this coming Saturday will be both a welcome distraction from their fight to avoid relegation to the East of Scotland Football League’s third division and a chance to further get the measure of one of their survival rivals.

Albert have played the capital side already this season, losing 1-0 away on Saturday, November 5, despite outnumbering their hosts for almost all of that match.

The Borderers remain bottom of the EoSFL’s second division, with three points from 12 games, and 15th-placed United, on nine points from 16 games, are one of the three teams, along with second-bottom Ormiston Primrose and third-bottom Lochgelly Albert, sharing the drop zone with them.

Albert have four games in hand on two of their fellow relegation-zone sides and three on the other and are only nine points behind 14th-placed Craigroyston, though, so Aitchison remains confident all is not yet lost.

He’s eyeing up this weekend’s first-round King Cup tie, kicking off at home at Albert Park 2.30pm, as an opportunity to further weigh up a fellow bottom-four side ahead of their next league meeting – in Hawick on Saturday, April 8 – as well as a potential source of silverware.

“Edinburgh United are a team we know well – it was only coming up to three weeks ago that we played them – and I think we’ve got a good chance of winning based on that previous result and performance,” he said.

“It’s also a good opportunity to learn without the pressure of risking losing three points.

“It would sum up our season if our first win did come in the cup but that would be a nice sort of issue to have.”

Aitchison is hoping to have some new recruits at his disposal for Saturday’s game, including Kan Wai Chan, a 33-year-old midfielder from Hong Kong now given international clearance to play.

“We’ll hopefully have a few new players for this game,” he said.

“We’ve signed a midfielder called Chan after waiting for two weeks for clearance.

“He’ll add a bit of experience to our team and a bit of quality and hopefully he’ll come good for us.

“He’ll be able to feature in the cup game, but whether or not we start him depends on how he does in training this week.”