St Roch’s manager Andy Cameron wants to gain promotion this season as a thank you to the club’s supporters.

The Candy Rock gaffer wants to repay the fans because they are covering the cost of the club’s new away kit.

St Roch’s came third in the Central First Division last season, finishing just five points behind promotion winners Cambuslang Rangers and Larkhall Thistle.

Now Cameron wants to go one better this season and secure promotion to acknowledge the debt to the fans for buying the club’s new away strip.

He said: “I already knew we had some of the best fans in all of junior football, but what they’ve done for us this summer is just amazing.

“We now owe it to the fans to get promoted, I think securing promoting is the only thing we could to repay them.

“We were already targeting promotion this season, but now we have an extra source of motivation thanks to fans.”

St Roch’s away top, which is inspired by Celtic’s new second strip, will have the names of the supporters who paid for it embroidered on it.

As the kit has been bought by the fans the club has decided not to put a sponsor on it. Instead, the shirt will have the name of a charity on the front.

Cameron added: “It wouldn’t be right to put a sponsor on the top when it was the fans who bought it, so we’ve given up the sponsor area to a charity.

“The charity we’ve picked is called See The Invisibles, they help homeless people in Glasgow and I'm so pleased that they've agreed to put their name on our shirts.”

Third place might not have been where St Roch’s wanted to end last season, but it still ranks amongst the club's highest ever final positions.

Cameron admits not getting promoted was disappointing, but insists the club still had a successful season.

He said: “When the season first ended I was bitterly disappointed, but on reflection, I’ve realised how good of a season we actually had.

“Obviously I’m still disappointed we didn’t get promoted, but if you look at the facts we achieved our best league finish in over 40 years.

“That’s just one of many positives we can take from last season, we now just need to build on the positive and forget the negatives.”

It’s been a summer of comings and goings at James McGrory Park with five new players arriving and two players departing.

Striker Darren Maguire, 20, was the club's first signing after joining from amateur side Possil Y.M.

Former vice-captain Darryl Naismith has re-joined after a season away with West Park Under 21s.

And 23-year-old centre-forward T.J. McCluskey has also returned to the club after having to take a year off due to illness.

While Robert Halliday of Cambuslang Rangers and Paul Tierney of Blantyre Victoria have both given up captain armbands to join St Roch’s.

Cameron has also been able to tie down ten players who featured for the club last season and says is hoping to re-sign a couple more.

However, Robert Maguire has departed the club to join Kirkintilloch Rob Roy while John Sweeney has also left and is expected to sign with Kilbirnie Ladeside.

Cameron said: “Ten players from last season’s squad have re-signed, I’m also waiting to hear back from a few others but I’m confident they will sign again.

“In terms of new signings, we have Robert Halliday, Paul Tierney, Darren Maguire and Darryl Naismith coming in.

“T.J. McCluskey is also re-joining the club after a year out with illness, however, we’ve lost two very influential players in Robert Maguire and John Sweeney.

“Overall, I’m happy with the way my squad is looking but I’m still hoping to add one or two more players.”

Cameron hasn’t just been strengthening his playing squad, he’s also made some additions to his coaching team.

Ex-Gartcairn manager Gary Johnstone and former St Roch’s player Stevie Rankin have both joined the club’s backroom staff.

The Candy Rock also have a new kit man in Phil Toye, however, Chris McFadyen has vacated his role as coach.