Ryan Strachan has paid tribute to departing Cove Rangers duo Darryn Kelly and Daniel Park for their roles in getting the club into League 2.
Kelly was transfer-listed at his own request yesterday while Park rejoined his former club Formartine United on Friday.
Strachan played alongside them in Cove’s last two Highland League title-winning campaigns and struggled to find the words to describe the bond that team shared in the dressing room.
He said: “It’s part and parcel of football but it’s not nice to see, as it’s your colleagues who won promotion with you.
“It does have an effect on the dressing room but these guys are men, these guys are winners and good characters in the dressing room.
“They were used to playing 90 minutes every week. They were good in the dressing room and whatever’s gone on in their personal developments, the outcome is that they’ve left.
“The 18 or 19 we ran with last year, our togetherness has always been part of our achievements. It has been the best dressing room I’ve been part of. The more we gain success, the more we move forward together.
“It goes without saying that these guys are part of the history we created and friends and colleagues of most of us.
“It’s hard to describe if you’ve not been part of a team environment. In my eight years at Peterhead I won League 2 and got to the Petrofac Cup final, but the Cove dressing room was special.”
Cove boss Paul Hartley said after the 3-0 win over Queen’s Park on Saturday that Park wanted to go. However, they had hoped to keep Kelly at the club.
Hartley added: “We would rather have kept him because he is a talented player who we saw as an important part of our squad, but we have to respect Darryn’s wishes.”