Duncan Sinclair admits it was an honour to manage Arthurlie for the first time as he got his tenure off to a winning start on Saturday with a comfortable 4-0 win over Craigroyston.

The ‘Lie opened up their pre-season fixtures with the comprehensive victory against the East of Scotland League side and Sinclair insists the win was vital for his new club.

He said: “It was important for us to start off with a win especially when you consider the turn around in players. We had 19 players involved on Saturday. That’s incredible when you think we started with just three players a few weeks ago. That’s credit to local knowledge and a lot of phone calls from myself, my backroom staff and people within the club. We’ve had good numbers in the training and it was good to be able to put out two different teams for each half.

“Tam McLaughlin, my assistant manager, and I had a look about as we walked out of the changing room on Saturday and took it all in. It is an absolute honour to be the manager of Arthurlie. Hopefully all of our hard work will get us the results we need. It’s just very small steps at the moment before we start to stride - it’s a work in progress.”

While it is early days and pre-season friendlies are used almost exclusively to gain match fitness, Sinclair was happy with how his new look side performed.

The ‘Lie opened the scoring five minutes in when Andrew Barrowman finished from close range before Derek McNab doubled their advantage after 20 minutes.

Sinclair’s men looked sharp as the second half began and made it 3-0 when Scott Nicol’s scuffed free-kick fooled the Craigroyston stopper and trickled over the line.

Just after the hour mark local boy Jamie Gray, who had come on during a mass of changes, served up the game’s best moment. Awarded a free kick on the angle of the penalty area, Gray stepped to curl in a sublime free-kick to make it four as the home side ran out comfortable winners.

Sinclair added: “I think I speak for everyone at the club when I say it was important to first and foremost be competitive. Getting the win was an added bonus because of the turn over in players.

“We asked everyone coming in their favourite position and we tried to accommodate that on Saturday. There was a lot of positives there. We got the ball down and played very well. I was very happy with the football we played. We’ve not really worked on shape or set plays so it’s a credit to the players to go out and play like that.”

With 14 players already signed up for the season ahead, Sinclair is still looking to bolster his squad ahead of the Sectional League Cup later this month and has already made contact with a number of targets.

He added: “We’re hoping to have one or two more players tied up this week. It’s difficult because they have a couple of other teams interested in them. All we can do now is continue to promote Arthurlie, which for me is a massive club. It’s an honour to be here. We’ll keep talking to the players and try to persuade them to sign contracts. It’s just a case of chipping away now.”