Leading East Kilbride into SPFL would top beating Aberdeen with Darvel says man behind greatest ever Scottish Cup shock

He masterminded the greatest Scottish Cup shock of all time. Indeed Mick Kennedy is still known to quizzical strangers as “that Darvel manager” - even though 16 months on from the Ayrshire minnows’ giant killing of Aberdeen he is now in charge of East Kilbride.

That was a monumental 90 minutes which gave the chicken restaurant chain owner’s football management career wings. It saw his and his players’ faces plastered across the front and back pages of national newspapers for days and TV cameras descending on the tiny village in their droves.

Yet, incredibly, it’s an achievement Kennedy is adamant he is now just 90 minutes away from topping. And in a game which is likely to get just a fraction of the coverage. Kennedy and his co-boss Simon Ferry are preparing their EK side for the second leg of their SPFL play-off against Stranraer with the tie on a knife-edge after a thrilling 2-2 draw at the Lowland league champions’ K-Park last Saturday.

It’s the third time of trying through the play-offs for the club who won their league in 2017 and again in 2019 only to lose to Cowdenbeath and Cove Rangers for a shot at life in the SPFL. But Kennedy is confident they can take the final step this time - and if they do it will kick start an ambitious attack on the SPFL starting with the owners, Paul and James Kean, building a £4.5million stadium in the town.

All of which, to Kennedy, would outweigh even the greatest giantkilling in Scottish football of modern times. He said: “Yeah, I think it would probably top that Aberdeen result. Definitely. Folk might say that’s mad. Maybe it is. But that was a one-off game. It was a significant achievement. But you’ve not actually won anything off the back of it.

“Whereas we’ve had to keep our