New Vale of Leithen manager Joe Murray looking to play long game but also out to give relegation fight his best shot

Murray, interim gaffer at the Innerleithen club since predecessor Michael Wilson’s departure in October and now given that role on a permant basis, hopes he can steer the former Scottish Lowland Football League outfit clear of a further fall to the EoSFL’s first division but is realistic about the scale of the challenge he faces.

Vale are currently propping up the table without any points from 16 games after having three points deducted for fielding an ineligible player in November. The season still has 14 games to go, however, giving them 42 points to play for, and both the teams immediately above them, second-bottom Oakley United and 14th-placed Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale, have also been hit with three-point sanctions.

“I’m very happy to get the job,” said Murray. “It’s good that we can now implement what we want to do now it’s 100% confirmed.

“They’re a genuinely good club. They’re a big club and they should be doing a lot better than they are.

“I think maybe the last few years, with successive non-relegations and things like that due to Covid, have both helped and hindered them because it put them in sort of a false position.

“Teams are just working out where they should be now and I think Vale probably no longer fit in the Lowland League just because of their budget and how much money they’ve got to spend. They’ll find where they need to be and they’ll start doing better.

“I think they’ve got the potential to be able to stay in the premier division. This season that probably won’t happen. It’s probably a bit too far gone now, but we’re going to give it a fair crack.”

Edinburgh-based Murray joined the Borderers from Lothian Thistle as both a player, originally a striker but a central midfielder more recently, and coach earlier this season but, turning 39 this coming Sunday, he’s planning to spend more time on the sidelines going forward.

“I’ve come off the bench a couple of times and things like that, but now I find it hard to coach and play at the same time. I’ve made that mistake before,” said the former Musselburgh Athletic, Tranent Juniors, Haddington Athletic and Edinburgh United player.“It’s hard to juggle both. Ideally, I’d like to be just managing and not playing as much but if I need to, I will.”

The fact Vale’s season-long injury crisis is finally easing should also lesson the need for him to take to the pitch, he believes.

“We’ve got a lot of guys coming back from injury so I’m hoping we’ll have a full squad at training this week for the first time since I arrived here,” he told us. “It’s looking a lot better.”

Vale’s next opponents are Crossgates Primrose, currently 11 league places and 29 points better off than them, and Murray is optimistic about his side giving a good account of themselves at Victoria Park this Saturday, with kick-off at 2.30pm, despite the disparity in the two teams’ standings.

The Fifers won the reverse fixture in mid-November 3-1 but, with home advantage and hopefully a few extra players available for selection, Vale might be able to pull off an upset, he reckons.

“We’ve played them already this season and we gave them quite a good game,” he said.

“They’re a good team, well organised and quite direct, so we’ll set up to try to stifle the way they play and shut down their main threats.

“Hopefully we’ll get some of the guys out injured back and we can go at them with a bit of energy.”