COMMENT: Tidser, Wylde, Austin, Erskine and Paton - the Lowland League is shaping up well

Talk about rubbing in? As if the wait for football’s safe return is not overdue enough – then the Lowland League teams kick into gear.

Barry Ferguson was a huge name to attract to the fifth tier, supplemented by household names like Tam Scobbie and Marky Millar. Seasoned pros from the SPFL - and, fairly recently, Premier League.

But it wasn’t a league for one last hurrah for players closing in on the end of their careers either. The likes of Nathan Austin and Bobby Barr made the step out of the senior ranks to play in the Lowland League while having options elsewhere and suddenly the bridge between the seniors and the juniors’ level had a surge in credibility.

Now? Now it’s probably as inviting a prospect as the lower level of the seniors, if not more so. Cliftonhill, Coatbridge or Central Park, Kelty? The Falkirk Stadium or Station Park, Forfar? The gap is narrowing.

This week’s signings suggest the top end of the Lowland League is going to be a cracker when it comes around again - Lewis Kidd and Paul Paton at East Kilbride, Scobbie, Austin, Michael Tidser and now Kallum Higginbotham at Kelty and Gregg Wylde at the Shire. Pool them together for an end of season exhibition game and that group would give a similarly compiled Championship side a run for their money.

Even since this piece was printed Chris Erskine has swapped the Premiership and Livingston for the Lowland League and East Kilbride.

Promotion to the SPFL when it does return – and given the calibre of player chapping at the door to make the step up it must – will be hard fought, and none of League Two will fancy falling into its’ clutches for 2021-22.

The Shire and Berwick Rangers have found it hard enough to bounce back since slipping out to Edinburgh City and Cove Rangers, respectively.

And now with the likes of Darvel recruiting at will in the new West of Scotland League, Camelon motoring and Linlithgow recruiting well too, interest outside the SPFL is growing, and after the unseemly fall-out of the past few months, long may that continue.