Scott Lisle hopes Formartine United’s good recent record in the Scottish Cup can continue this season.
The Pitmedden side are at home to West of Scotland League Premier Division side Cumnock Juniors in the first round of the competition.
In five of the last six seasons Formartine have won at least two ties in the Scottish Cup.
During that time they have also played the likes of Partick Thistle, Queen of the South and Motherwell.
Looking ahead to this season’s cup campaign 23-year-old striker Lisle said: “We’d like to keep that good record going.
“In the last few years Formartine have always given SPFL teams a good game.
“I think the top five or six Highland League sides have shown they can match sides from League One or Two and there’s maybe not that much of a difference in quality.
“Last season we had a few decent results and ended up getting a really good tie against Motherwell.
“This year the hope would be to do something similar, but we need to get through this first tie.
“I think the incentive for every Highland League club is to try to get through a couple of ties and see where that takes you.
“Even in my time with Brora we played Kilmarnock (in 2018) as well and those are the sorts of games you want to be involved in.”
Step into the unknown
Lisle expects a difficult encounter against opposition he doesn’t know a huge amount about.
He added: “We don’t know a huge amount about Cumnock, but I recognise some of their players and it’s going to be a very hard game.
“But there’s always a little bit of going into the unknown when you face a team like that.”