Brechin City Football Club

Glebe Park, Brechin, Angus DD9 6BJ

Tel : 01356 623344
Email : secretary@brechincityfc.com
www.brechincity.com

News - 12 October 2018

Ryan McGeever Interview - By Brechin City Media Team

Due to a long-term injury last season, City's Ryan McGeever played 8 games and was on the winning side only once. As if to demonstrate how football can turn on its head, this season to date, he's also played 8 times - but this time around he's lost only once.

The Media Team spoke to towering centre back Ryan McGeever on late comebacks, new additions to the squad and why he and the rest of the team are feeling confident about the 2018-19 season.


BCFC Media Team: Hi Ryan, and thanks for talking to us. Last season was a difficult year for everyone involved with The Club, but it must have been doubly hard for you, having to watch so much of it from the sidelines through injury. You must be delighted to be on the pitch consistently and showing what you're capable of now?

RMcG: Yes, it was really disappointing for me on a personal level. I started out in The Championship, then had to drop down to League 2 with Queen's Park. We managed to get up to League 1, and then when Brechin got promoted and I came here I was relishing the challenge of proving myself again in the Championship. So, getting injured for so long was an absolute nightmare, and obviously with the team not doing so well it was very hard just sitting up in the stand, watching the boys and wanting to help as much as you could.

BCFC MT: There have obviously been a few new arrivals in the squad since the end of last season. Can you tell us a bit about some of them as you know some of them quite well, don't you?

RMcG: Yes, I know Sean Burns very well. We played together in the Queen's Park team that got promoted two seasons ago and as soon as I heard that he was someone that the coaching staff might be looking at I said straightaway to go after him. Despite still being quite young he's already played more than 250 games at first team level, and he offers a lot of energy up and down the pitch and good delivery into the box. He's got a goal or two in him as well - as the City fans at Airdrie last weekend would have enjoyed seeing.

Boris Melingui has been a bit of a revelation. He's the kind of player that even if he's not perhaps having his best game, he still gets in areas where he gets chances, which is maybe something that we missed last year.

I can't single out every single player who's come in, but I don't think there have been any failures. More recently Callum Hendry has shown the Premier League pedigree he has, and Conor Brennan has more than filled Graeme Smith's boots.

Also, we all knew at the start of the season that when Andy Jackson was fully fit and back to his best that he would be like a new signing. He's got so much quality and he's really been showing that recently and his double at Airdrie simply re-enforces what we already know. And there's Callum Tapping who I think is probably one of the best centre midfielders in the division so there's a lot of good things to come from us.

BCFC MT: We obviously lost the first goal again on Saturday yet managed to come away with a great win. I guess you'd probably rather not go behind in the first place, ideally, but which has been the most satisfying comeback so far this season?

RMcG: The away win at Airdrie was crucial, as it was our first win this season on an artificial surface and allowed us to finish the first round of fixtures on something of a high. But the Dumbarton game at home has to be right up there. To win in that way, with what was basically the last kick of the match, was the best way to do it - and to do it against a team like Dumbarton who you would expect to be up towards the top of the table come the end of the season, just shows that we should have nothing to fear.

We decided very early on this season that there was no point dwelling on last year; it's a new year; what happened, happened and I think there's been an excellent response from all the boys who were here last year, both the playing squad and the coaching staff. And yes, it's great to be getting a run of games.

BCFC MT: What were your ambitions at the start of the season and how do you assess your progress now with the first quarter gone?

RMcG: The squad's feeling quietly confident. When we put our first XI out on the pitch we're starting to show we can compete with anyone so it's just a question of keeping everybody fit and getting on a wee run. If we can do that we're very optimistic about this year.

You'd have to ask the manager what his ambitions were - but for the players, the ambition for us at the start of the season would certainly have been play-offs and upwards, and so far we're on track for that - personally I think that's the attitude you need to have to succeed at this level.

BCFC MT: How have you found the Angus derbies so far?

RMcG: Me and most of the boys who are based down in the Glasgow area probably weren't that aware of the significance of the derbies, and obviously last year we didn't have any, but now we have three local teams and you want to be the best of those; it's like a mini-league and there's a lot of pride riding on it. These games are probably the ones that pull in the biggest crowds and you want to succeed in those.

I played on loan for Arbroath once against Forfar, early in my career, and I remember thinking it was probably the biggest crowd I'd played against, at that time. I certainly noticed that that game had an extra competitive edge to it so I was looking forward to that again this season.

Unfortunately we didn't get off to the best of starts in the derbies against Montrose as we gave away a two goal lead before we had settled down, with a bit of a makeshift defence. We got back into the game but unfortunately just couldn't do enough to take anything from it. Since then we've had another good comeback away against Arbroath, who are obviously flying high, and taken a hard-fought point at Forfar.

But we want to finish as high up the table as possible and we can only do that by beating the other teams and that's going to have to include our Angus rivals, so the sooner we start to do that the better.

BCFC MT: Before we go, in the spirit of "...and finally..." questions, we thought we'd ask you to share something about one of your team mates that we don't know?

RMcG: Hahahaha. [Later, after several abortive attempts to come up with something that isn't libellous]: OK, here's one that might be suitable. My mum taught Paddy O'Neil. He was one of triplets, how does that sound?

BCFC MT: Thanks Ryan, and look forward to seeing you back in action after the international break.

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