Raith Rovers’ player of the year Dylan Easton relishes return to Elgin City for Premier Sports Cup opener at club he says kick-started his career
He loved every minute of his time at Elgin City - now he plans to shoot them down in the opening game of the season.
Dylan Easton is playing the football of his life with Raith Rovers at the age of 31, winning the Kirkcaldy club’s player of the year and being part of some near-misses for promotion to the Premiership.
The former St Johnstone man credits Elgin as the club who helped launch his career after playing two-thirds of a season at Borough Briggs in 2015-16, and almost winning the League 2 title with the Black and Whites.
He will play there for the first time in over nine years this weekend when Raith visit Elgin for the Premier Sports Cup group opener to launch the 2025-26 Scottish football season.
“Going up to Elgin was amazing for me,” he recalled. “The stadium just felt like the fans were right close to you and I had a really good relationship with them all at that time.
“I really wanted to stay there but I had a young family at the time and the travelling became just a bit too much. But I loved every single minute of it up there.
“I spoke to Jim Weir (his Elgin manager at the time) about it the other week and we were speaking about how enjoyable it is.
“It's my top three in terms of the most enjoyable seasons playing, definitely.”
Weir signed Easton in October 2015 after his time at St Johnstone had come to an end. City had made a strong start to their campaign but hit a patch of bad form, and Easton’s arrival coincided with a revival which took the Moray club to the top of the League 2 table - a position they still held in March.
Their title challenge faltered and East Fife won the league by three points, with Elgin losing over two legs to Clyde in the play-off semi-finals when Easton picked up a bad injury.
He was signed by former Rangers player and manager Barry Ferguson for Clyde, with the pair later reunited at Kelty Hearts.
Easton’s career was almost ended by a cruciate injury and surgery but Forfar manager Gary Bollan rescued him from the scrap heap at a club where Weir would later join and team up once again with Easton.
From Kelty he moved to Airdrieonians where he won the PFA Scotland League 1 player of the year, prompting Raith to make their move for him in 2022.
The Fifers came close to winning the Championship two years ago, eventually pipped by Dundee United and missing out on the play-offs.
Easton helped reignite their challenge last season as they narrowly missed out on the play-offs, and he was named as the Starks Park club’s player of the year and recently signed a new contract.
He is relishing his return to Elgin this weekend, and meeting up with former Elgin team-mates Brian Cameron and Matthew Cooper who are the only survivors of the Black and Whites’ team he played for.
“It was the perfect platform for me to go and play at Elgin,” he said. “We had an incredible squad that year, we pushed East Fife all the way, and then fell short in the play-offs.
“It was probably a couple of months before the end of the season when we realised we've got a right good chance here,. Jim Weir and Gavin Price put a big part in that and we were so confident.
“I think we went into every game knowing that we were capable of winning, and we had Craig Gunn at the time who was an absolute goal machine, so I was just playing off him.
“I got a lot of assists that season, maybe not as much goals, but it was a season that I always look back on and go, that's the kind of season that kickstarted me.
“I've never been back to Elgin since so I'm really looking forward to it. It's a stadium that I loved playing at, so hopefully we get a good result, but I know it'll be difficult.
“Elgin have obviously picked up the last couple of seasons up there, so it's exciting for them. If you get the right manager and the right team and the right way you want to play, you always get rewards for it.
“We know it's going to be a tough game, especially up there as well.”
Easton said since his time at Elgin he experienced a lot of low points before experiencing an upward curve in recent years.
“I’ve had a lot of setbacks, a lot of quite serious injuries and I was close to chucking in the game.
“I'm thankful that my partner gave me a bit of a kick up the bum and pushed me on, and my football’s in a great place now.”
He won’t be the only former Elgin player in Raith’s squad, with last season’s Black and Whites keeper Aidan Glavin joining the Kirkcaldy club following his release from Kilmarnock.
“I was speaking to Aidan about Elgin just the other day. He's been incredible since he's come in.
“He’s just a little bit unfortunate that we've signed (ex-St Johnstone keeper) Josh Rae but I think he's someone that'll definitely push him and you never know, he could be in the team on Saturday.
“We mentioned about obviously going back up to Elgin and I said it was one of those stadiums that I just love playing it, where I played in every week.
“I look forward to going back up there, I can’t believe it’s been nine years.”