After going close to promotion last season, Stranraer spent much of this campaign toiling at the other end of the league table. Stevie Aitken’s departure to Dumbarton last summer left the Blues seeking a replacement, with Brian Reid the man selected to take charge of their campaign. It got off to an inauspicious start as they lost three successive matches, albeit against teams expected to challenge for the title, and while there was a brief resurgence thereafter, by the time Reid was jettisoned in January, the club had bottomed out. They might have lost some important players over the summer, including Andy Stirling, but there was no way that they should have slumped to such a degree and his exit was predictable. Reid had spent much of the time playing players out of position, with Steven Bell used as a centre-back, for example. In came Stevie Farrell to set about simplifying things, making signings to solidify what had been a leaky defence and changing the 4-4-2 system to a 4-2-3-1 in order to strengthen the rearguard further. This new approach gave immediate results. They might not have been spectacular, but they were certainly steady as they kept a succession of cleansheets and gradually secured the points that had them moving back to the main pack of teams. A 2-1 win over Airdrie at the end of March carried them out of the bottom two, and they would never return there, despite a cagey ending to the campaign that saw them have to get a positive result against East Fife to secure survival. Farrell’s approach also brought its problems, with a particular struggle to find an offensive system that worked for his side. Willie Gibson’s individuality was one of the pillars that they were forced to lean upon, while the efforts of Craig Malcolm in attack were also key, though the striker does not really possess the hold-up play to be an effective lone striker in the long term. Stranraer, therefore, will have fresh questions to answer in the new season, but at least these will be posed in League One.
