{"id":201858,"date":"2025-06-21T06:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T06:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/201858\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T06:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T06:30:13","slug":"new-lanark-united-boss-quietly-confident-of-success-in-west-of-scotland-first-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/201858\/","title":{"rendered":"New Lanark United boss quietly confident of success in West of Scotland First Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven McGurgan has taken the reins after the side were unexpectedly promotedLanark United have appointed Steven McGurgan as their new manager<\/p>\n

Steven McGurgan isn\u2019t shouting his ambitions from the rooftops, but is quietly confident of success at Lanark United.<\/p>\n

Former Wishaw, Gartcairn and Shotts left-back McGurgan took over the reins at Lanark from Daryl Meikle in the summer, and inherited a side that were promoted to the West of Scotland First Division due to Broomhill\u2019s collapse.<\/p>\n

Eight teams will be promoted up to the Premier League due to Lowland League reconstruction in season 2026\/27, which was voted through earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Lanark have been on a good run in recent seasons – winning the Third Division title in 2023\/24 – but McGurgan isn\u2019t taking anything for granted.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWe\u2019re just treating it as a normal season. You can get into a false sense of security, in terms of no relegation and stuff, and start jumping the gun, in terms of getting promoted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a rebuild for us, so the aim is to try and get a competitive team on the pitch in a very competitive league.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe target is to make sure we compete regularly. With the time we\u2019ve got from now to the start of the season, hopefully we can put a team together that will be competitive in that league.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a brilliant league. I wouldn\u2019t be setting targets, in terms of making big statements in what we\u2019re going to do and stuff like that, because it is a rebuild.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re having to start from scratch to piece something together, but I am confident we can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LanarkLanark United won the West of Scotland Third Division title in 2024(Image: Billy Quigley)<\/p>\n

McGurgan, 39, didn\u2019t expect to be thrust into the hot seat as early as this, but intends to grab it with both hands, alongside assistants Brian McKinven and Niall Reynolds.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for myself and a great platform for the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the way they went last season, Lanark took it right to the wire, and were so close. Unfortunately Broomhill have gone out of existence and that opportunity [for promotion] has arisen now, but it\u2019s one I\u2019m looking forward to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been coaching for the last four or five years. I joined Bellshill as assistant manager earlier in the year, which was great, because I had a real platform to show what I can do, and what I bring to the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a great environment for me and I didn\u2019t expect to go into management so soon, but it had always been on my mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been about playing for about 15 or 16 years at this level, and played with some good clubs \u2013 Blantyre Vics, Shotts, Benburb \u2013 and most recently I was actually at Lesmahagow, towards the end of my playing career.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not in the forefront of my mind any more \u2013 it\u2019s not \u2018option one\u2019, put it that way. I\u2019d rather see the team on the pitch express themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven McGurgan has taken the reins after the side were unexpectedly promotedLanark United have appointed Steven McGurgan as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[81470,81471,748,4884,40423,81468,81467,81469,712,13315,70572,16,15,33879],"class_list":{"0":"post-201858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-bellshill","9":"tag-blantyre","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-lanark","13":"tag-lanarkshire-football","14":"tag-lanarkshire-sport","15":"tag-lowland-league","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-scotland-football-team","18":"tag-scotland-u19s-football-team","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wishaw"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114719950492833584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}