Athletic bid to recapture form

Oct 17 2008 by Craig Robertson, Dumfries Standard Friday

IT’S BACK to the future tomorrow for Annan Athletic as they look to make a return to the stunning form they found at the start of the season.

Every team in the Third Division has now come up against Scottish Football’s new boys at least once as the second quarter of matches begins.

So the Galabankies will revisit the match where they started off in August in their first ever league tie against Cowdenbeath.

That game went Annan’s way with an historic 4-1 victory. What followed was a miraculous run of games which saw in the top half of the league.

Recently, results haven’t gone so well.

But Annan will be hoping to re-ignite some of that initial spark and, just like Michael J Fox in that famous film, dust off the DeLorean and go back to that promising future in the league.

Chairman Henry McClelland said: “We’ve had a chance to reflect in what’s passed over the first quarter of the season and everyone is delighted with what we’ve achieved.

“Things haven’t been going our way recently but we are sitting on 11 points and we would have taken that at the start of the season.

“This season was always going to be a learning curve for us.

“But all the other sides will know a bit more about us as well.”

Annan have had a week off from football due to the international match last weekend but the players weren’t given a holiday.

Manager Harry Cairney had them into training on Saturday morning to reinforce the message that their dip in form is not good enough.

The gaffer is expected to make changes to his side for tomorrow’s game.

Meanwhile, Annan have let six players leave the club in the last week as Cairney looks to shake up his squad.

Jordan Cranston has been signed by Glasgow Uni Graduates Dan Bulman has gone to Carlisle City, Steven Brown is off to St Cuthbert Wanderers and Greig Goodwin, John Rennie and Simon Turner are off as well.