WE WON'T BETURFED OUT THE SPL

EVERYBODY at Dunfermline is desperate to ensure the club is not involved in a third consecutive relegation battle.

It's mentally draining fighting at the wrong end of the table every season and I never thought that's where we would be when Davie Hay and Billy Kirkwood took over at East End Park two years ago.

But we've ended up 11th twice in a row after after finishing fourth the season before and playing in a Scottish Cup Final to qualify for the UEFA Cup.

Those are the dizzy heights we need to look to be scaling again.

We were so inconsistent last season. Livingston beat us and we went bottom of the table, then we turned up at Celtic Park and won 1-0 and you think to yourself are we cheating ourselves here?

We have good players who are capable of getting good results and mounting a challenge to be atop-six team.

I don't want to make any excuses but over the last two seasons we have had a freakish and horrendous injury list to contend with. I'd love to have seen other teams cope with the nightmare injury list we've had to put up with.

The treatment table most days at East End Park was frightening. There could be anything up to 15 bodies needing treatment for something or another and it was always injuries to key first-team players.

I have my own theory that most of the injuries were to do with the plastic pitch and the after-effects of the astroturf.

Players were never injured while playing on the synthetic turf but it has been a definite case of players suffering wear and tear injuries after the pitch was replaced. Cartilage, hernia and Achilles injuries were par for the course for us and I don't believe that was a coincidence.

At times last season we had to throw in young boys who had not even had a sniff of first-team football.

They were thrown in at the deep end in relegation battles and that was tough for some of them.

Young Nicky Phinn made his debut against Hearts at just 17 at Tynecastle but at least it shows we can call on these guys again this season.

The good thing for the club and the fans is that they will be all the better for that experience this season.

The future is looking good for this club with some of these kids coming through.

But in a league like the SPL there is no substitute for experience and that is why the manager has signed guys like Jim McIntyre, Noel Whelan and Phil McGuire who have been over the course and played many games in senior football.

We've had a problem in the scoring department ever since the departure of Craig Brewster and Stevie Crawford so it's no surprise the manager is trying to fill that void with experience.

Mark Burchill came in last season and did a fantastic job. He formed a decent partnership with Noel Hunt. Hunty has now left us but we got some money out of that which was good for us. Now Burchy can hopefully form a partnership with McIntyre.

I see them in the Brew and Crawf mould. Burchy is a goalscorer like Crawford and McIntyre is a very intelligent player like Brewster was.

Maybe the Pars were spoiled during the Brew and Crawf era. That team disintegrated through financial necessity as the wage bill was colossal for a club like Dunfermline back then.

We're now on a more sound financial footing and our ambition for this season must be to get back to finishing in the top six.

We know people will write us off from day one and we will be one of the bookies' favourites to go down but we'll take that on the chin.

We open our SPL campaign against Hearts and I'd love to put a dent in their title hopes early doors.

MAN TO WATCH: NICKY PHINN

THE youngster has bags of promise and a lot of talent and can make a major impact this season. The 18-year-old midfielder became a first-team squad regular under boss Jim Leishman last season. Nicky has progressed through the ranks since signing from Hearts Boys Club and I'm sure he will be a key player for us during this campaign.

Taken from the Daily Record