GLAMOUR friendlies are being lined up ahead of Dunbar United’s new stand being unveiled.

Work is due to start at the club’s New Countess Park within a matter of weeks, ahead of the 200-seater stand being put in place there.

The club hopes that the stand will be ready for the start of the new East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) season kicking off later this summer.

Fans have increasingly got behind Kevin Haynes’ team, who currently sit 13th out of 18 teams in the Premier Division, the top flight of the EoSFL, this season.

The club enjoyed a memorable debut in the Scottish Cup this season, defeating Broxburn Athletic and Camelon Juniors before losing out to Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale in the second round.

Stuart Robertson, the club’s chairman, said: “It is unbelievable.

“We have almost quadrupled our gate income from times before Covid, which is a big testament to how the community has got behind us this season.

“We have made a huge effort as a board to be more inclusive.

“The Scottish Cup has been helpful and created a buzz.

“We had nearly 1,000 people to those matches as part of the Scottish Cup campaign.”

Work has gone on in the background for a number of years to see a stand erected down the western touchline at New Countess Park.

Planning permission is already in place and Mr Robertson confirmed that an order for the 200-seater stand had now been placed.

Local firm AG Thomson will carry out the groundwork before the stand is in place in time for the new season.

The club’s chairman took time to praise the community, who had once again got behind the club with about £10,000 raised through a sponsor-a-seat campaign.

He said: “I think that New Countess Park is already a top-end facility in the region but this makes it stand out as the best in the region.

“There are better in the league, like Linlithgow Rose, but certainly not in East Lothian.

“It is all about seeing the other clubs improving all the time and we want to be part of it.

“As well as having got the SFA licence last year, this was the next step for the board.

“A lot of our fans cannot stand for two hours and hopefully this adds to a really strong following we have got this season.”

Eve Coaches, which is the club’s shirt sponsor, has also agreed a 10-year sponsorship deal on the new stand.

The season is due to come to an end on May 14, when Dunbar head for Tynecastle, but Mr Robertson revealed there were already “high-profile friendlies in the pipeline” to mark the completion of the new stand ahead of the beginning of the 2022/23 campaign.