After eight months without competitive football, the Vale get the new Lowland League campaign under way on Saturday (10 October) with the opening day match away to Berwick Rangers.

Lewis Hall, the club’s newly appointed Vice Captain, looks ahead to the new season: “It’s been a long period without a competitive game so I’m sure the whole team along with me are really excited to finally get back at it. 

I believe we will definitely improve on the results and the position we ended up last year. Personally I want to start contributing more in the sense of setting up and scoring goals myself, last season was my first ever season where I’ve not managed to get on the score sheet. So that’s something I can improve on. 

Last year was my first in the lowland league, so it was a difficult start. I think coming up from a successful Spartans 20s team maybe made me underestimate the pace and quality of the league and the amount of hard work you have to put in. This pre season I’ve put in the extra running and workouts on top of training to ensure I’m fit and ready to start the season as best I can. Especially because I’ve learnt from last year how important it is to get a good start to the season, so we want to get points on the board as soon as we can. 

I think we will compete much better this season and won’t suffer any big defeats like last year. We’ve got a fairly new squad but I think the players who have come in have brought a fresh mentality and style of play into the squad. We’ve shown in pre season that we can score goals and get big results when we work hard. So I’m excited to see how we fair in the upcoming campaign.”

Berwick Rangers v Vale of Leithen kicks off at 3pm and is a behind closed doors march due to current restrictions. You can get updates on the match by following the Vale’s twitter account @ValeLeithen