Lugar Boswell Thistle aiming high after earning promotion

George Wallace's side secured third place in the league, and a spot in the Third Division next season, with a 1-0 over league champions Glenvale in their penultimate match of the campaign.

The Jaggy Bunnets put the icing on the cake with a 3-1 win at home to Royal Albert in their final fixture.

The last-day win completed an 11-match unbeaten run to end the season, and made it 13 wins in 15 matches from the end of December - as the village outfit turned around their rollercoaster start to the campaign to make this season one to remember.

Manager Wallace commented: “The boys worked hard. The first half of the season was a wee bit up and down – we were sitting mid-table around Christmas time.

“In the end up we went on a pretty decent unbeaten run. The last three or four games no one was going to beat us.

“We brought in three or four new faces over Christmas and got rid of a couple – I think that sort of changed us.

“The attitude changed as well. Once you go on a wee winning run, the consistency just kept coming.

“We tightened up at the back as well, then we just started ticking teams off.

“We knew if we won every one of the last five or six games we’d go up – that was the goal and we did it.”

Formed way back in 1878, Lugar have held a place in Scottish football's record books for more than 140 years thanks to their 10-2 victory over Hearts in March 1883 - a result which remains the Edinburgh club's heaviest ever defeat.

But Wallace and his players have their eyes firmly set on the future, rather than the distant past - and the Rosebank Park boss is hoping their promotion success can be the start of something special.

He added: “We’re a wee club but we want to actually make a name for ourselves.

“A lot of the boys have never won anything. There is no better feeling than actually winning something especially with your mates.

“Next year, most of the boys are signing on, plus a couple more.

“I don’t think I need much more. I’m looking forward to it – we’re good to go.”

Despite the stiff competition from elsewhere in the area, with the village located on the shoulder of some of the west of Scotland's biggest clubs, Wallace believes that with the right attitude there is now reason Lugar can't keep growing.

Wallace also believes moving the club's training base to Kilmarnock has also helped attract a wider range of players.

He continued: “You’re right in the middle of Auchinleck, Cumnock, Glenafton and all the rest of them.

“It’s just trying to keep a hold of the boys now, because there are teams sniffing around because they’ve had a good season.

“All of the other teams have a bigger budget than us, so it’s hard. You just hope they want to stay, push on and go up again.

“That’s the goal. We don’t want to be a mid-table team, we want to kick on and get promoted again."

And continued growth off the park is something that will be vital for the ambitious club, who clinched promotion just weeks after receiving the green light for a 'community asset transfer' of Rosebank Park from East Ayrshire Council.

Taken together, events on and off the pitch certainly seem to be making Lugar an exciting place to play football.

Wallace added: “We’re trying to do things right, we’re trying to build and get it a bit more professional – you get that if you’re winning.

“It might be a wee place, but we don’t need to be a wee club. We’ve just got to keep pushing on.

“The committee do well to get us the money we have, but some of the teams we play will have three or four times that.

“The boys just bought into it. We’re not here for the money, we’re here to try and win – and that’s what we did.”