It has been a summer of change for Birkmyre RFC, with the appointment of a new head coach following promotion to West League Division 2.
The club based in Kilmacolm stormed to the West 3 title last year under the guidance of head coach Craig Williams, but he opted to step aside in the summer and has been replaced by Andy Lang.
Lang has an interesting rugby CV which began in the youth set-up at Greenock Wanderers before he headed to South America and represented Santa Clara in Paraguay.
On his return to Scotland, he moved east and played at Dunbar while also turning out for rugby league side Edinburgh Eagles which led to age-grade honours in the 13-a-side code.
Another stint abroad followed, this time at SC Frankfurt 1880 before Lang returned to Greenock at the end of his playing days.
As a coach, he’s retraced his steps with stints at Greenock, Dunbar and Birkmyre, to where he returned during the summer.
He arrives after the Inverclyde club clinched the West 3 title in dramatic fashion, thrashing Lochaber on the final day to take the championship on points difference from Irvine.
"It was a great season,” said stalwart volunteer Stuart Cruickshank.
“It was great for the boys, who narrowly missed out on promotion the season before. We were hit with a couple of long-term injuries towards the end of the season and we ended up falling a bit short.”
Having initially joined as a coach when his son, 1st XV fly-half David, was among the minis at Birkmyre, Cruickshank is now responsible for running the club’s social media channels.
He said a strong contingent of young players has helped drive the club forward.
“Most teams in our league are older but over the last couple of years, the average age of our team has transformed in a positive way.
“We’ve got a number of boys who are just out of school and there’s a group of about five or six players who are 19 or 20, and they’ve all contributed.
"A lot of the team could be playing a few divisions up but they are keen to stick together, and that has been great for the club.”
The youngsters will face a step up in quality in West 2 this season, and they have been preparing with a tough pre-season schedule.
It kicked off with a 52-12 defeat to West 1 outfit Kilmarnock and will see the club also face East Kilbride and Bishopton before getting the league campaign under way at home to Wigtownshire on August 31.
“We feel that these fixtures against tough opposition will set us up nicely for the season ahead,” Cruickshank added.
After a terrific title-winning campaign last season, Cruickshank knows the importance of keeping the feel-good factor alive at the club – even without a permanent home.
“We’ve got really good community links,” he said.
“At least 50 per cent of our players come from the local area, and the locals do tend to turn out for our home games, which is great.
“It’s a pity that we don’t have a clubhouse to call home.”
Birkmyre play their games at Birkmyre Park, a council-owned facility that they get first refusal on.
“We need to book it out for our matches and training, so we have that outgoing without having the income of a club, but we don’t have the outgoings that are associated with running a club.
“We would love to have our own clubhouse, but for various reasons that is a bit of a pipe dream.”
They might be happy without a home to welcome opponents to, but after the high of a dramatic league title win, Birkmyre’s focus this season will be on ensuring they make West 2 their home for the foreseeable future.
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