Broxburn Athletic: We only have a three per cent chance of beating St Mirren but our players will leave everything out there

They may well turn out to be “fish and chip paper” next week, but Broxburn Athletic boss Brian McNaughton only hopes it is after a glorious showing in the club’s biggest-ever game.

Saturday is Broxburn’s day to shine as they head through to Paisley with a 1600-strong army of red and white behind them bidding to extend their Scottish Cup fairytale one chapter further.

A match up against Scottish Premiership side St Mirren is something to saviour for the East of Scotland side who have already battled their way past six teams, including one replay, in their first-ever Scottish Cup sojourn.

Days like tomorrow won’t be a regular occurrence for the West Lothian men, so McNaughton has urged his players to make the most of it.

“It’s all about making sure we can stay in the game for as long as we can,” said McNaughton. “We aren’t going to go kid ourselves on; it’s sixth tier versus first tier and I’m not expecting anything other than them hopefully putting on a performance for all the supporters going through, and “The players will try their hardest and they’ll leave nothing on the park, that’s the message to them. Hopefully we don’t get annihilated. We have prepared ourselves properly.

“The players need to make the most of it as they might not get to play in a game like this ever again.

“We had the press in on Monday; radio stations and TV stations and all that, so Hissy (assistant coach Stevie Hislop) was a bit fed up that we didn’t get started until seven o’clock! Hopefully it does happen again at the club, but you might not see this for a long time, the club getting into the fourth round.

“We have to enjoy it when we can and take the press when we can because no doubt next week, unless we win, we won’t have the same sort of coverage we’ve had since the draw.

“I think they call it fish and chip paper.

“We will end up as fish and chip paper after everything that goes in this week – I used to go the chip shop and they used to wrap it up in newspaper – that might not be [the norm now], my wife would say I am showing my age!”

Broxburn are only enjoying this terrific run thanks to the tireless work put in by their committee to get their SFA licence over the line in the summer. Scottish Cup entry is guaranteed every season for the time being as a result.

McNaughton added: “Keeping the licence is the most important thing because it gets you in the Scottish Cup every year.

“We’ve had two preliminary rounds then we’ve had three games against teams higher than us, so it’s not to say you’re going to beat them every season. This is our seventh game in the cup and generally if you win six games in any cup you normally win the cup by then.

“There’s no guarantee you are going to get through to the fourth round every year; we aren’t even guaranteed to get to the first round every year.

“It’s been a special time for the players, the town and the committee who put so much effort into getting our licence at the end of last season.”