By The Spider
July 15 2002

Well, a new season is nearly upon us and all at Hampden will be hoping for as dramatic an upsurge in fortunes during the next 12 months as has been our demise during the same period.

As one would expect, last season saw a lot of players come and go for one reason or another and those dearly departed ex-Spiders are Graeme Smith, Jim Brown, Gary McPhee, Andrew Carberry, Chris Ewing, Ross Caven, Greg Miller, Brian Miller, Stewart Orr, Kevin Miller, Paddy Gallagher, Craig Stevenson, Paul Patterson, Derek Rae and Liam McVey. The position regarding John Cunningham, Mark Gallagher and Kevin Proudfoot remains unclear at the time of writing but it is likely that they too have headed for pastures new as they did not feature on the last list of "signed players" produced by the Club.

Looking at that list, it is indeed encouraging that the names of Neil Collins, Stephen Canning, John Gemmell and Chris Fisher (to name a few) do not feature on it as they represent the hope that our future is indeed a bright one. John McCormack has spent another busy summer trying to attract new players to the club and, thus far, his trawl has captured Darren Magee (formerly with Dundee), Damiano Agostini (back from Italy), John Gallagher (East Fife), Gordon Lappin & Stuart Jack (both Gourock YAC), David Menelaws (East Stirlingshire) and Alistair McNiven (U-18's). It is also possible that Paddy Gallagher could make an early return from Stranraer after less than a year away.

No doubt all will feature at some stage during the pre-season friendlies and what a mixture we have this year. Excluding closed-door matches, the full list is as follows:

Tuesday (16/7) v Hibs at Hampden (7.30pm)

Saturday (20/7) v Annan Athletic at Annan (2.00pm)

Tuesday (23/7) v Everton at Hampden (7.30pm)

Friday (26/7) v Lancaster at Lancaster (7.30pm)

Sunday (28/7) v Gretna at Gretna (2.00pm)

The league campaign will then commence at home to Elgin on Saturday (3/8) and this crucial opener will quickly be followed by another home game on Tuesday (6/8) v Gretna in the first round of the Challenge Cup. As with last season, the first league away trip takes us to Montrose on Saturday (10/8).

This site will endeavour to provide you with the most extensive match reports on each and every game as well as a variety of other features but more about them at a later stage. Log on to the Message Board on Tuesday night after the Hibs game and share your views of the evening's events with other fans. Brief details of the game will appear late that night with the full report appearing on Wednesday evening.

I look forward to joining you for another season of trials and tribulations!