On the eve of our season kicking off I find myself contemplating where Stirling Albion is as a team and where it can go from here. I found Ricky's review of Stenhousemuir's success a riveting read, That and other manager comments about youth training suggests 4 youths is not the way to go,

Picking one auction youth with great potential is a great but expensive option. Selling 10 TP would help. Although I think I tried that one season but no-one was buying.

Over in SFLSL with a max SL and three free players in the draft having a younger squad seems to be a better route to success. But here Stirling usually has one of the older squads in SESL. So I was surprised to fin we have the youngest squad in SESL at the start of the season.

This will be our 8th season in division 3 which is far too long. In that moment of contemplation I realised it's been 7 seasons since I raised the OTF to 10 and started using ball control. Could it be linked? I hope not but if we fail to make it into division 2 this time round I may have to don my thinking cap once again.