DUMBARTON appointed Stephen Aitken as their manager yesterday afternoon and the former Stranraer coach got to work quickly by having a meeting with the players after discovering he had no squad signed for next season.
The 39-year-old has left Stair Park after two-and-a-half seasons, bringing assistant Stephen Farrell with him, to replace Ian Murray who opted to move to St Mirren last week with a two-year deal signed yesterday.
Aitken, who will continue to work as an engineer with Rolls Royce on a similar part-time basis to Murray, said: "I started work straight away by having a meeting with the players. In fact I started work on Tuesday when I knew I was taking the job by doing my research into the squad.
"Some of the boys that were here under Ian have agreed to sign but the paperwork has not been completed, so we will look to get that done as soon as possible. Hopefully we will have a number of signings to announce before the weekend.
"When things are working well, there is no need to make a lot of changes. I will speak to the boys here before bringing other people in."
Aitken added: "It has been a frantic time since I agreed to come in and it will be great to get things settled down after what was an unsettling time for myself and the players. It was probably the right time for Ian to move on to St Mirren after two-and-a-half seasons here and it was probably right for me to move from Stranraer after a similar length of time.
"It was difficult to leave Stranraer and when I told the people there it was quite an emotional time and I wish them well in the future.
"I have to praise Ian for the work that he did at Dumbarton and I know that was a real team-effort from him, his backroom staff and the players. It is an exciting challenge to carry that on.
"Next season there will be eight full time teams in the Championship and ourselves and Alloa. The League could also include Rangers or Motherwell and Hibs will definitely be there so it will be a really tough environment but that does not faze me."
As for Farrell joining as well, Aitken said: "I am delighted that Stephen has joined me as he could have stayed on at Stranraer and had a shout at being their manager. Everything that was achieved at Stranraer was achieved together and that will be the same case at Dumbarton."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article