By Stuart Gillespie
Creetown kick-off their 130th anniversary season with a special friendly on Saturday. And boss Martin McCaulay hopes the encounter with St Roch鈥檚 Juniors gets his side ready for the new season. Further games against Threave 20s, Dalbeattie Star and Maybole Juniors are planned before the big kick-off against Star on July 26. With games against Stranraer, Nithsdale Wanderers and Lochar Thistle following soon after, McCaulay wants a competitive pre-season to put his players through their paces ahead of a tough start to the campaign. He said: 鈥淔rom the club鈥檚 point of view it鈥檚 a big season. 鈥淚t鈥檚 another milestone in the club鈥檚 history and everyone is looking forward to it. 鈥淪t Roch鈥檚 Juniors are making the long trip down from Glasgow to open up our pre-season. 鈥淒uring the off season, I told the club there would be a few outgoings and hopefully more incomings and I wanted pre-season as tough as I could get it. 鈥淲hen you鈥檝e new players, you鈥檝e not got much time to gel them together. I wanted it to be the toughest pre-season we could get to make sure the new boys know what鈥檚 required and the standard that鈥檚 needed. 鈥淲ith the fixtures being released, the tough pre-season I asked for has been justified. I think we had the hardest start on paper last year and we鈥檝e definitely got it again this year.鈥 McCaulay has been busy building his squad for the new season, with a number of new additions 鈥 although they have yet to be officially announced. He added: 鈥淭here have been four outgoings and as things stand there are five incoming. 鈥淭he squad is still a bit thin at this stage but we鈥檝e another four or five weeks until the first league game of the season. We鈥檙e hoping to add one or two more to the squad before then. Click here for more news and sport from Dumfries and Galloway. 鈥淲e鈥檝e gone about or business in a quiet manner, which is how I like to deal with things. 鈥淭here will definitely be new faces among the squad but we鈥檝e managed to keep about 80 per cent of the squad we had. 鈥淭owards the end of last season we got injuries, which left us extremely short and we only had 12 or 13 players for the last month. 鈥淲e started pre-season last Monday night. We鈥檝e already had some good sessions in the bank. 鈥淚t鈥檒l be nine training sessions and four games before the first league game. Things are shaping up well and I鈥檓 fairly happy with what we鈥檝e got just now.鈥