Gala Fairydean Rovers up against new faces and old acquaintances next football season

Plans for a reorganisation of the fifth-tier league having been kicked into touch – for now, at least – it will follow the same 18-team format as last term.

Manager Martin Scott’s Fairydean having avoided dropping down to the East of Scotland Football League’s premier division by virtue of a goal difference eight better at the expense of since-disbanded Broomhill, they’re now looking forward to their 13th consecutive season in the Lowland League since its launch, in a 12-team format, in 2013.

Their 16 opponents include one newcomer, West Dunbartonshire’s Clydebank, and 2022 champions Bonnyrigg Rose, making a comeback after three seasons in the Scottish Professional Football League’s second division.

West of Scotland Football League premier division champions Clydebank move up a tier after a 3-1 aggregate play-off win against their EoSFL top-flight opposite numbers Musselburgh Athletic, having drawn 1-1 with them away in East Lothian and beaten them 2-0 at their 1,200-capacity Holm Park home ground.

Manager Gordon Moffat’s Bankies finished last season 17 points clear of Auchinleck Talbot at the top of their table, on 77 points from 30 fixtures.

Midlothian’s Rose, manged by Jonny Stewart, go down a division after losing by the same aggregate scoreline to East Kilbride, last season’s Lowland League champions, tying 0-0 at home after losing 3-1 in South Lanarkshire.

That followed ending up bottom of the fourth tier, level on 36 points from as many fixtures with ninth-placed Forfar Athletic but with a goal difference nine worse.

Though Fairydean have never played Clydebank’s current incarnation, formed in 2003, or any of their predecessors dating back to 1874, they’re no strangers to Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, as they were known at the time, following their promotion to the Lowland League as EoSFL conference B and round-robin play-off winners in 2019.

Only four of their scheduled league fixtures over those three seasons went ahead due to covid-19 restrictions leading to call-offs during the first two, with Rose winning them all – by 5-1 in February 2020, 4-0 in October of that year and 3-0 in January 2022 in Galashiels and by 2-0 in November 2021 at home at New Dundas Park.

Rovers – their league’s last Borderers standing after Hawick Royal Albert and Selkirk’s exits in 2018 and that of Vale of Leithen in 2022 – have got the better of Bonnyrigg once, however, knocking them out 5-1 at home at Netherdale in an East of Scotland Qualifying Cup fourth-round tie the last time they met, in February 2022, with the Borderers going on to lose 3-1 to Linlithgow Rose in that May’s final in Penicuik.

Their scorers against Bonnyrigg that time round were Gregor Jordan and Zander Murray at the double and Phil Addison, with Kerr Young getting one back for manager Robbie Horn’s visitors, left short-handed by a first-half red card for Dean Brett.

Rovers’ 17th-placed finish last term, on 31 points from 34 fixtures, was their lowest yet after ending up 16th out of 18 last year, 12th out of 19th in 2023, 13th of 18 in 2022 and of 16 in 2018, sixth of 17 in 2021, 11th of 16 in 2020 and of 15 in 2016, eighth of 15 in 2019 and 14 in 2015 and tenth of 16 in 2017 and 12 in 2014.