Cammy MacDonald itching for return to action

Jan 21 2010 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

CAMMY MacDONALD has revealed the recent cold snap has seen him swap patrolling the Livingston back four for pounding sand dunes at the frozen Scottish seaside.

MacDonald and his Livingston team-mates have been left in cold storage since crushing Clyde 7-1 on December 14 after the country was battered by snow and ice.

As a result, the club have been on a world tour of Scotland’s training facilities and beaches in a bid to keep fit.

But now a return to competitive action is in sight for the Lions and stopper Cammy is itching to pull his boots on again and get back into the heat of the first-team battle.

He said: “We’ve been on a tour of Scotland’s beaches and other places all over since the snow came.

“We were at Aberdour and Cramond beaches for training, while we have also visited Toryglen and other centres all over the country.

“We’ve really been all over the place trying to keep fit and it has kept us going.

“We are a fit bunch of boys at the club and the boss has made sure we’ve maintained our fitness with some excellent sessions. He has done extremely well to give us different types of training.

Desperate

“But you can’t train match sharpness and that can only come from games, so we need to get back to playing.

“We are all desperate to play again and it feels like so long since our last game.

“It will be great to get back to playing matches, which is what we live for.

“We did get a run-out in a bounce match against Queen of the South and it was good to test myself against players of that level again.

“Tony McParland and Rocco Quinn (ex-Livingston pair) both played and it was good to catch up with them as well.”

Livingston are currently sitting in top spot but are just two points ahead of chasing East Stirling.

The gap had been five before Livi slipped up in their last league match against Forfar before their enforced winter break.

But MacDonald reckons the gap should be bigger and he hopes to reignite their title challenge with a win over Stranraer at Stair Park on Saturday afternoon.

Although he admits that he will have to be on his toes to keep new Blues striker Armand One, a former fan favourite at Livi and a towering presence at over 6ft 7in, quiet

“It is good to be top but the best word I’d use to describe our position at the halfway stage is satisfied,” he added.

“I feel we could have a bigger lead at the top, as we have dropped points in games we really shouldn’t have.

“Perhaps that was us adapting to life in the Third Division but now we need to kick on and go on and win the league.

“One of my first-ever games with senior players was against big Armand.

“I was only 16 years old and I was playing in a side which was a mixture of senior Livingston players and boys from the youth team.

“Armand was playing upfront for Raith Rovers that day and I felt I did well.

“I’ll always remember that game as it was my first game with the seniors and I enjoyed the match.

“I noticed he scored twice last weekend but we have a very settled back four now and I go on the park every weekend convinced we’re going to keep a clean sheet.

“Playing against Armand will be a different proposition to most weeks as he is so big but you have to adapt to handle different players.

“I felt I did well against Chris Templeman of Forfar, who is almost as big as Armand.”