Foresters Park hosted a very good crowd by South Division standards on Saturday as Tranent got their 2015/16 campaign under way for real, a week behind their league rivals on account of the odd number of teams following Harthill Royal’s withdrawal.

Boss Gary Small has been in charge since February, inheriting a struggling team and guiding them through seven games to the end of last season without victory; since then it’s been a case of assembling a much stronger squad, wholly changed personnel-wise, with a view to challenging this season for promotion to the Premier League.

For too long, Tranent have been scraping by and at long last there’s an air of optimism for the future, with the entire structure of the club revamped. Pre-season brought its own challenges as the manager took steps towards a brand new squad gelling ahead of their league campaign, and finally he had the opportunity to watch his team in truly meaningful action for the first time. The visitors were Pumpherston Juniors, fleetingly a Premier League outfit in 2013/14 but relegated immediately after a torrid season upstairs – by and large, though, they too have found the past decade a mostly fruitless period.

Tranent started a little nervously, perhaps not unnaturally given the background to the fixture, but they soon settled into their stride and were for the most part quite comfortable against opposition who had little to offer in the face of their hosts’ superior quality. Nerves eased greatly after Ben Miller struck an exceptional opener with 15 minutes played, firing home from 25 yards after collecting a Jamie Paterson cross from the right.

It was 2-0 11 minutes later when Chris Gordon marked the start of his third spell with the club with a goal, something of a rarity these days – his goal came on the counterattack after a Pumpherston corner was cleared and, seeing space available, duly took advantage in a one-on-one with the visiting keeper. To be two goals up at the interval was entirely satisfactory, and the manner in which Tranent performed was also pleasing to those fans who’d turned up hoping to see their favourites play good passing football.

Pumpherston were seen relatively rarely as an attacking force and their fate was sealed when Small introduced Kenny McMillan from the bench with just over half an hour remaining. Part of Haddington Athletic’s South Division title-winning squad last season, McMillan marked his Tranent debut with a terrific third goal quarter of an hour from the end, scoring from the edge of the box on the left with a shot into the top corner. He added his second three minutes later and rounded things off with two minutes left, completing a well-deserved hat-trick.

Manager Small was delighted with many aspects of his team’s performance but was quick to acknowledge the fact they’ll face stronger opposition over the course of the season – no less than this Saturday when they visit Midlothian to face Easthouses Lily, who’ve returned to junior football after a gap of more than half a century.

Successors EM United managed four seasons in the junior ranks but quit in 1969, with the village’s footballing representatives subsequently having played in the amateur ranks and the East of Scotland League. The current Lily were runners-up in the latter last season before jumping ship and are fancied to be among the promotion contenders in this season’s South Division, so all in all it should be a fascinating encounter this Saturday.