Marvin Bartley on facing good pal Dougie Imrie in Raith Rovers v Stenhousemuir league opener
Raith Rovers versus Stenhousemuir on the opening day of the William Hill Championship season on Saturday, August 1 has thrown up an intriguing tussle between opposing managers who are very good pals.
It’s Dougie Imrie in the home dugout against his old mate Marvin Bartley, now in the hotseat at newly promoted Stenny after Gary Naysmith’s resignation to join Ayr United.
Bartley, 39, who worked alongside 42-year-old Imrie for seven months in 2021 when the pair were respective assistant manager and coach at Livingston, told the Fife Free Press: “Dougie is a really, really good friend of mine in football. I actually played in a charity game with him the other day.
"Listen, I’m very, very close to Dougie.
"I do rate Dougie very, very highly until he starts shouting and everything else!
"Maybe ask me after the game and I might say something different. I’ve got all the time in the world for Dougs, in football, outside of football and everything else.
"But he understands and I understand that we go into that game, that 90 minutes that we’ll be each others’ worst enemies, we’ll be at each other and then after the final whistle’s blown we’ll be back to being friends.
"I’m proud of him for getting the job at Raith as it’s one he really, really wanted.
"He did extremely well at Morton and now he’s building a really good squad at Raith. So I wish him all the luck in the world except when he’s playing against Stenhousemuir obviously.”
And ex-Queen of the South and Livingston gaffer Bartley added: “Ultimately you have to play everyone in the course of a season the same amount of times.
"It’s not like there’s a top five and you have a split. We knew the teams that were going to be in the league, we knew we were going to face them home and away a certain amount of times and we just have to get on with it.
"Is it a tough start? 100%, but we have to mentally prepare ourselves for that game when it comes around.
"Physically we have to be ready. We’ve got the league cup to navigate before that and the squad will hopefully have players added to it as well before the Raith game comes. Hopefully by the time of that first game there will be a few more bodies within the building.