A week’s a long time in football, and so it has proved in the last 7 days. But the focus shifts forward now, as we head to Holm Park and our old friends at Clydebank for our 4th Scottish Lowland Football League match of the season.

⚽️ Clydebank versus Troon F.C. ⚽️
Saturday 8th August 2026
Scottish Lowland Football League (West)
Holm Park, Yoker
Kick-off 3pm

Saturday’s momentous milestone of our first ever home match in the 5th tier of Scottish football went almost exactly as we had hoped it would, ending with a comfortable victory and a happy crowd. With absent players slowly returning to availability, Troon are starting to look more like themselves after a sticky couple of weeks.

With numerous holidays & injuries affecting the squad numbers, as well as seven new signings trying to bed themselves in, it has been an up and down start to the season after high hopes in the summer. But we are only three matches into a 32 game league campaign, and we’re off the mark and looking forward.

Clydebank had an outstanding campaign first time out in the Lowland League, and were only pipped at the post at the death by Linlithgow Rose. Their plan is very clear – go one better. Win the league & then negotiate the play-off to secure the return to top flight football that their supporters crave for the first time since 2002.

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

Lack of availability is on everyone’s lips, but we are starting to see players return slowly.

Kyle Gilroy returned to training on Monday, but congratulations are in order as he tied the knot with his beautiful wife Erin in Italy last Thursday! Fantastic news, and huge congratulations to them both.

Leyton Dunlop is pushing to return to the side this weekend after missing the last few matches with a groin complaint suffered in the WOSFL Cup match at Auchinleck Talbot and Jack Allan is likely to return for next week’s match at Fauldhouse after being carried from the pitch in the same game following a bad challenge. Summer signing Ben Armour is close to a return as well after a tight hamstring from pre-season.

Nathan Baird returned to the side on Wednesday, as did Evan Ferguson after holidays (not together) while young Clayton Hood returned to the squad at the weekend.

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.

That was a bit more like us on Saturday! A really enjoyable game on Saturday I thought, you can see Gretna had some football about them but I thought we negotiated it well. Considering we were coming into this on the back of two defeats, I thought the boys came out the traps really well as I had asked them to. Even when we went a goal down (which was right against the run of play) I though they showed real character to bounce straight back, and could have won by more in the end.

It’s only been one season that we haven’t been playing Clydebank, but it’ll be good to be at Holm Park again and renew friendships with a lot of familiar faces on Saturday. We’ve always maintained great relations with the club, it’s a club we always enjoy our matches with and I’m sure this weekend will be no different. They had a great season last season, and I think we all felt for them on the final day, but I’m sure Moff will have them back at the sharp end this season. They’ll be reeling from their result at Celtic last week, and a weekend off was probably not ideal after that, but I’m sure they’ll be keen to get that shock out of their system this weekend.

I said last week that we don’t become a bad team overnight after two defeats. Well, we don’t become the best team overnight either, so if we are going to take what we are looking for from this Saturday’s game then we need to be right at it from the very start. A poor start, not quite 100% and we’ll be punished; but on the flip side, start as we know we can and we’ll be confident of a result.

The Chairman tells me there are decent travelling numbers for the supporters bus this Saturday, that’s great to hear. Always makes a big difference to the players to get your vocal support on matchdays such as these.

‘MON THE TROON!!

Jimmy Kirkwood (Team Manager)

Full Name	Clydebank Football Club
Nickname(s)	The Bankies
Founded	2003 (Original Clydebank 1888)
Ground	Holm Park, Yoker
Capacity	1,200
Chairman	Grace McGibbon
Manager	Gordon Moffat
Captain	Nicky Little
2025-26	Scottish Lowland Football League, 2nd from 18

⚽️️ BLAIR ROSSITER ⚽️

⚽️️ NEIL McLAUGHLIN ⚽️

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

28th July	Celtic B	6-1	Clydebank	Lowland League (West)
26th July	Clydebank	2-2	Partick Thistle	Nicky Little Testimonial
25th July	Clydebank	4-2	Newton Stewart	Lowland League (West)
18th July	Clydebank	4-1	Irvine Meadow	Pre-Season Friendly
14th July	Clydebank	2-0	Kilsyth Rangers	Pre-Season Friendly

1st Aug	Troon F.C.	4-1	Gretna 2008	Lowland League (West)
29th July	Johnstone Burgh	2-0	Troon F.C.	Lowland League (West)
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

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:

It was so nearly a dream season for the Paper Hankies last time out; they led the Lowland League for quite a part of last season, and had their supporters dreaming of a return to the senior leagues in Scotland after so long away. But a nightmare scenario unfolded as Linlithgow Rose pipped them at the post, winning the league title on the final day of the season. Controversy reigned almost immediately, with Linlithgow announcing the morning after the trophy presentation that they did not possess the required license to gain promotion – something the Clydebank board had worked so hard to achieve in time.

Last year was a record breaking season for Troon, by any metric; West of Scotland Cup winners, on that amazing day in May, Promotion to tier 5 of Scottish football for the first time in our history, led the Division for a long time before securing a club record highest league finish after guaranteeing a top 3 finish in the WOSFL Premier Division and we achieved our Scottish FA Licence, which will see us take part in the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup for the first time ever this season.

(before this week’s matches)

	REFEREE:
	Brent Falconer
Assistant Referee 1:		Assistant Referee 2:
Scott Bunting		Cameron McEwan

Referee Observer:

Not yet appointed

For travelling supporters, our media team have put together a number of new “Supporter’s Travel Guides” for directions and helpful tips to an away day:

Supporter’s Guide – Holm Park, Clydebank

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.

⚽️ Fauldhouse United versus Troon F.C. ⚽️
Saturday 15th August 2026
South Challenge Cup Round 1
Park View, Fauldhouse
Kick-off 2pm