DICK CAMPBELL insists that Arbroath will retain their part-time status in the event the Angus club are promoted to the Premiership.
The unlikely Championship contenders face a trip to Rugby Park on Friday evening for a do-or-die clash with Derek McInnes’ Kilmarnock, where a victory would leave Arbroath just one game away from the top flight.
As the only part-time team in the second tier, the fact that Campbell’s side have made it this far is a minor miracle all on its own. And although he accepts that the deck would be stacked against his team if they were to compete in the Premiership and they didn’t go full-time, he sees no reason to break with decades of tradition.
“Listen, half my life I've been part-time, and half my life I've been full-time,” Campbell told Go Radio. “But we're not going to go full-time, that's not going to happen.
“If you go back to the ’70s, Arbroath were in the First Division and they were part-time. They stood their ground.
“I would go into the Premiership and we'd be heavy, heavy favourites to go down because we're part-time.
“But I tell you what, it doesn't make the players any different. The players love a challenge.
“I'm not saying we wouldn't go down, we probably would go down and I'd probably get the sack because that's what happens in football now. You're scared to get promotion.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here