Liam Craig: Life at Braves has been a fresh start

Liam spoke of how the interest from Braves had been there since the start of the season, adding “We played against you guys (Braves) at the start of the season and I was speaking to the gaffer and Davie (David Winters) after that, and the interest was always kinda there”.

Craig did end up spending the first half of the season at Dalbeattie but the side lying bottom of the Lowland League have endured a tough season, winning just once and the striker mentioned it was a “no brainer” to make the move closer to home at Braves and have the opportunity to get winning games again.

Despite coming in midway through the season, Craig highlighted he hasn’t really required a transitional period since joining. The East Kilbride-born forward, who has played previously with Marc Kelly and Ross McNeil before joining Braves,  added “I feel I’ve fitted in comfortably, obviously the gaffer demands high standards and high work rate so that’s what I have come in and done”.

The 24 year old, who works as a joiner outside of football, will certainly bring a different dynamic to the Braves attack with his pace, power and versatility across the front line. He exemplified this in Wednesday night’s 5-2 win over Hearts B as he linked up particularly well with strike partner McNeil in the first half and provided an inch-perfect cross which led to our second goal of the evening. Liam praised the tempo and aggression of the teams’ performance saying “Credit to the lads I thought in the first half we penned them in and they found it very hard to play through us... that’s where we got our joy”.

Craig also looked ahead to the visit of Cumbernauld Colts at the weekend highlighting the stuffy and direct nature of a Colts side that he is fully aware of having played them twice already this season with Dalbeattie Star. The striker noted the confidence our squad will have going into this game though and added “If the boys go with the same tempo, aggression that we showed last night I think we have a good chance of winning the game and climbing the league again”.

We hope that you can join us at Alliance Park on Saturday 11th February as we host Cumbernauld Colts in the Lowland League.  Kick-off is 3pm and it is pay what you can at the gate (optional donation) once more as we are proud to showcase free-scoring attacking football to all fans.