Johnstone Burgh Match Preview

Typical – you wait 10 weeks for a league match, and two come along within 5 days! It’s another away match and it’s a midweek trip under the new lights at Keanie Park for our 2nd Scottish Lowland Football League match of the season.

⚽️ Johnstone Burgh versus Troon F.C. ⚽️
Wednesday 29th July 2026
Scottish Lowland Football League (West)
Keanie Park, Johnstone
Kick-off 7.45pm

Saturday’s momentous milestone of our first ever appearance in the 5th tier of Scottish football fell a little bit flat with a 2-0 defeat to Pollok, but with a few more players returning we head to Johnstone with cautious optimism.

Five players made their competitive debuts for the club on Saturday and all showed they have what it takes to help us make an impact this season, none more so than Martin McDonald in goal who netted the Supporter’s Man of the Match award after a string of fine saves. But it’s points that matter, and that’s what Jimmy will be targeting as we head to Keanie Park.

Johnstone Burgh supporters have been taken on one hell of a ride since Jack Henderson & Scott Graham bought the club a few years ago. Promotion in the first year and Scottish Junior Cup winners in their second year, last season was almost disappointing by comparison even though promotion was sealed in May with a star-studded squad. Cup-winning Manager Murdo MacKinnon departed in April, and he has been replaced this summer by former Dumbarton & Stranraer Manager Stevie Farrell. A new era dawns and with it several new signings have arrived from the SPFL; added to the quality they already had in the building, their focus must now will be on the league title and promotion to the SPFL.

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of Wednesday’s match…

Lack of availability certainly caused us a problem or two on Saturday at Pollok, but the picture is looking brighter ahead of our next two matches. Nathan Baird returns to the squad, as does Evan Ferguson after holidays (not together) which adds strength in depth to the matchday squad.

Clayton Hood is still away on holiday, while Leyton Dunlop misses out with a groin complaint suffered in the WOSFL Cup match at Auchinleck Talbot and Jack Allan misses out after being carried from the pitch last Saturday at Auchinleck Talbot following a bad challenge. He isn’t expected to be out long, but Ben Armour is likely to sit out with a tight hamstring from pre-season.

We do have a couple of injury issues still hanging over from last season. Jack Sherrie has finally got a date for the pre-op ahead of a date for surgery on his ACL injury, while Club Captain Mark Morrison is hoping to get the all-clear to return to training when he visits the hospital this week following successful hip surgery in the summer.

Second game in five days, it seems like just yesterday we were complaining about the boredom of pre-season!

Saturday was a fantastic occasion in our first match in the Lowland League, and Pollok certainly made the most of the occasion so good to see what it means to both clubs after a few season of hard work. Unfortunately the match didn’t go our way, and that was the source of some frustration on the day.

We were disappointed to be heading into the first match of the season missing so many bodies, which really hamstrung us to be honest. Having said that, we felt the starting XI were good enough to go and win the game, but we were a little short of options from the bench in the second half and that cost us I felt. Both Jack Allan and Leyton Dunlop were big losses for us, they both picked up knocks in the WOSFL Cup match at Talbot and are key men for us so they were a big miss, but four players away on holiday for the first match of the season was a new one for me.

Focus shifts straight away to this week’s matches and Johnstone Burgh.

Burgh will be a totally different proposition to the side we played last season. Many similar players that we’ll all recognise, but a summer of recruitment and a new management team of Stevie Farrell & our former player Mark Roberts will see a new challenge for us, but as usual it’s one we’ll relish.

It’s our first home match at Portland Park in the new league, so here’s hoping we get a good crowd on Saturday to make it a proper special occasion. Here’s hoping we can bring 3 points back to Troon to start the occasion properly.

Jimmy Kirkwood (Team Manager)

Full Name	Johnstone Burgh Football Club
Nickname(s)	The Burgh
Founded	1956
Ground	Keanie Park, Johnstone
Capacity	3,000
Club President	Brian Williams
Manager	Stevie Farrell
Captain	Del Esplin
2025-26	WOSFL Premier Division, 6th from 16

⚽️️ BRETT LONG ⚽️

The 29 year old former Northern Ireland youth international is a headline signing for Burgh this summer, following his former Dumbarton Manager Stevie Farrell to Keanie Park.

Began his career with Cliftonville before a move to Scotland and Motherwell in his teens. He moved to Dundee United before spells with Forfar, Clyde, Elgin, East Fife and Peterhead before he headed to The Rock, where he spent four seasons.

He cemented himself in that Dumbarton team, setting a club record for the most clean sheets recorded by a single keeper in one season in 2023 as he went on to chalk up 89 appearances in his four seasons at The Rock.

Keeper maybe wasn’t an area that required strengthening given Luke Scullion’s performances, but that shows you how highly rated Long is by Manager Farrell. A key player for the new Manager.

⚽️️ THOMAS ORR ⚽️

Another of Farrell’s former charges, Orr played under Stevie Farrell at Stranraer and jumped at the chance to do so again.

The 29 year old forward began his career in the St. Mirren Youth Academy before a move to bitter rivals Morton. Loan spells at East Stirling, Livingston & BSC Glasgow followed before he left Cappielow after four years to join Queens Park. He rejoined BSC Glasgow permanently a year later before heading for Stranraer in 2020 where he enjoyed the most prolific season of his career, earning a move to Stenhousemuir. After two seasons at Ochilview, he returned to Stranraer before he became a headline signing for Cumnock in the summer of 2024 under his former BSC Manager Stephen Swift.

228 appearances and 49 goals in the SPFL tell you he’s an experienced campaigner, and Farrell will be expecting Orr to lead the line alongside Kyle Lafferty this season as they chase silverware.

© Thanks to our club photographer Graeme McKenzie for his photos – fantastic, as always!

Johnstone Burgh

14th July	Darvel	2-6	Johnstone Burgh	Pre-Season Friendly
18th July	A. Winton Rovers	0-4	Johnstone Burgh	Pre-Season Friendly
11th July	Johnstone Burgh	2-0	Knightswood	Pre-Season Friendly
27th June	St. Roch’s	0-2	Johnstone Burgh	Pre-Season Friendly
23rd June	Annan Athletic	4-1	Johnstone Burgh	Pre-Season Friendly

Troon F.C.

25th July	Pollok	2-0	Troon F.C.	Lowland League (West)
18th July	Auchinleck Talbot	1-0	Troon F.C.	Pre-Season Friendly
13th July	Troon F.C.	2-2	Craigmark	Pre-Season Friendly
11th July	Troon F.C.	2-1	Glenburn MWFC	Pre-Season Friendly
8th July	Troon F.C.	3-2	Maybole	Pre-Season Friendly

If you can’t make it along to the game, you can keep up to date with all the latest info via the club’s social media channels:

X / TWITTER

Live updates from the official Troon F.C. Twitter feed

FACEBOOK

Match news via the official Troon F.C. Facebook page

TIKTOK

Our newest addition! Watch some official Troon F.C. clips on our TikTok feed

All news on the club FIRST via the official Troon F.C. WhatsApp Supporter’s Group chat

It was a win apiece in the Premier Division for each side last season with a tight festive encounter at Portland, and then a comfortable win in the April sunshine at Keanie Park.

HOME MATCH

TROON F.C.	1-2	TROON F.C.
Portland Park, Troon	Saturday 20th December 2025	WOSFL Premier Division

The first encounter of 2025-26 was a frustrating encounter for Troon, who were in a rich vein of form as they entered the fixture.

Troon had the better of the opening half, but were unable to take their chances and came in level at the interval.

Calum Gow gave us a deserved lead early in the second half, but Burgh gaffer Murdo MacKinnon was able to call on Ciaran Diver, Captain Del Esplin & new signing Allan MacKenzie and goals from Kyle Lafferty and Danny O’Neill gave the visitors the 3 points.

AWAY MATCH

JOHNSTONE BURGH	2-0	TROON F.C.
Keanie Park, Johnstone	Wednesday 22nd April 2026	WOSFL Premier Division

The return match in April was a surprisingly comfortable affair. Calum Gow was again the scorer with the opener coming in the 18th minute, but despite several chances the game was only put to bed when Kyle Gilroy scooped home past Luke Scullion in the 85th minute.

(before this week’s matches)

	REFEREE:
	Mark Daly
Assistant Referee 1:		Assistant Referee 2:
Michael McCart		Rhys Brown

Referee Observer:

Not yet appointed

Tickets are available at the cash turnstiles at Keanie Park:

Adult:	£12
Concession:	£7

You can find out all about the match itself by visiting the match centre both before and after the game, with the team line-ups, scorers & bookings on the specific match page for the fixture.

To visit the match centre, CLICK HERE.