| Brora bring in McDonald ahead of tonight's curtain raiser |
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Brora Rangers go into this evening's HITS North of Scotland Cup first round having secured a trio of new signings over the weekend. Boss Andy Macleod revealed earlier this week that attacker Scott Mackay-Steven was on the verge of putting pen to paper and that deal is now done while former Elgin City left back Ally McDonald and goalkeeper Andrew Maitland have also joined. There was a run out for McDonald as a trialist in last Thursday friendly success over the North West Select side while Maitland has been on the bench in all of the club's official pre-season friendlies as backup to new stopper Steven Martin. Speaking to http://www.highlandleague.net/, Macleod said: "Ally was at Caley Thistle when he was younger and he has been in America recently. He was also at Elgin City before he went away so he has a real bit of experience even though he is still a young lad. "We let Ally play in an amateur cup final on Saturday and rested him on Sunday for the Ross County. However, he played half a game for us as a trialist on Thursday against the North West Select. We gave him the day off on Sunday and got the paperwork wrapped up so hopefully he will be raring to go at Wick. "He will offer us something on the left side so I was delighted to get him on the books. He will now be available for selection for the cup tie at Wick on Wednesday night and it means we have a number of players all chomping at the bit. That is what we wanted - a wee bit more depth to the squad. The players will be scratching their heads and wondering who will be playing at Wick and maybe I will be as well!" The loss of last season's second goalkeeper Michael McCallum coupled with Daniel Bell being on holiday has made filling the number one jersey a priority for Macleod this summer. He has already brought Steven Martin in from Tain Thistle while Maitland's arrival brings further competition. Macleod revealed: "We have Daniel Bell off on holiday at the moment until August 6th and we have brought in Stevie Martin to challenge him. We also now have big Andrew with us and he has been playing amateur football with local teams. He has shown a brilliant attitude to come in to training with us and has been working with Stevie over the last few weeks. He will carry on with that and when Daniel comes back, that will be another goalkeeper that we'll have. It remains to be seen if Andrew will go then go back to the amateurs but it's a funny game football and you never know what can happen. Andrew knows that and he is a big, cracking lad who we are delighted to have on board." Macleod is also expecting a number of the players from the club's successful under-19s squad to be pushing first team jerseys with a number of them having already been given a run out for the first team in the summer friendlies. The Cattachs boss added: "We have a few boys involved who came through the 19s. We had Sean Munro involved on Sunday. He played at centre half alongside Mark Smith and did very well for himself. We also had Alan Larnoch playing on the left side of midfield and he is a young boy from Lybster. Chris Campbell is another young lad from Lochinver and he is battling away trying to break into what is now a quite a big squad." |
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