Elgin City boss Gavin Price will start pre-season training next week with former Aberdeen winger Sean Linden and striker Josh Peters as trialists bidding to win a Borough Briggs deal
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ELGIN City return to training next week with two players trying to win a deal at the Borough Briggs club.
Manager Gavin Price has offered a pre-season trial to Elgin-based former Aberdeen winger Sean Linden (18) and striker Josh Peters (23), who has been a thorn in City's side in previous seasons.
Price is also keen to bring midfielder Archie Macphee back to City on another loan deal from Formartine United, but said any business will depend on what budget he has available to him.
The Elgin boss hopes that by the time the football season returns in October, crowds will be allowed into matches and the club can start bringing in much-needed revenue which in turn can help his squad-building efforts.
In the meantime, he will put his north-based players through their paces at the opening pre-season session in Elgin next Thursday.
Two days later the full squad will return to Borough Briggs for a double session to prepare them for a first friendly match against Lossiemouth on September 12.
Joining the squad is front man Peters, who has netted against Elgin for previous clubs Forfar Athletic, Queen's Park and Stirling Albion.
The player has returned to the Aviemore area, having started his career in the Highland League as a teenager at Strathspey Thistle before winning a short term deal at Hibs.
Peters also had a brief spell with Livingston, and last season scored the winning goal against Elgin on two occasions for Stirling. He also scored in two games for Forfar against City in 2016-17, and also for Queen's Park in a 2-1 defeat at Borough Briggs in 2018.
"We will hopefully work something out with Josh," said Price. "We had a good chat with him during lockdown and hopefully we can get clarity with budgets so we can get him in, which would provide us with another great option."
Linden is a former Elgin Academy pupil who has been part of Aberdeen's youth set-up in recent seasons, but didn't have his contract renewed by the Pittodrie club during the coronavirus shutdown.
He played against Elgin at Borough Briggs during their 25th anniversary match against a young Dons outfit last July, and is now back living in the Moray area.
"He’s been in training with some of the guys like Darryl (McHardy) and Joel (MacBeath) because they all live in the town," Price added.
"Sean is a player with a lot of raw pace, direct and he’ll be eager to get going again. It’s hard on these kids getting freed, a lot of it not their own fault but because of the situation that we are in.
"I spoke to Paul Sheerin (Aberdeen youth coach) about him in depth and he rates him quite highly so we will get him in for pre-season and see what happens.
"Pace in wide areas is what we are needing. We have Conor O’Keefe but I think we started playing really well last season when we had two wingers playing at home, and that’s something I'll be looking to try and do this season."
City host Lossie on September 12 and are also at home on the following two weekends to Brora Rangers (19th) and Caley Thistle (26th).
They play a return fixture against Caley on September 31, with another friendly to be fixed up on October 2 when Price takes his squad to his home town of Aberfeldy for their traditional training camp weekend.
Elgin are the odd team out in their Betfred Cup group when the competition starts on October 6, and have to wait until Saturday, October 10 for their competitive opener at home to Stirling.
They visit Montrose three days later, before the tournament pauses for a month and resumes on Tuesday, November 10 when City host Ross County, before finishing the group stages four days later with a trip to Arbroath.
City's first League 2 match is at Stranraer on Saturday, September 17.
