Raith Rovers star Jai Rowe reveals his lofty ambitions for next season
With Raith Rovers last having been in the Scottish top flight way back in the 1996-1997 season, there would be a nice symmetry about the Kirkcaldy outfit sealing their place in the William Hill Premiership by gaining promotion from the championship next term, exactly 30 years on from that 1997 team which went down to the old first division under joint caretaker managers Stevie Kirk and Miodrag Krivokapic.
Like so many of the current Raith squad bossed by Dougie Imrie, English right-back Jai Rowe wasn’t even born when Raith’s ’96-’97 crop – who had started that season bossed by Iain Munro before he was sacked in the spring – finished bottom on 25 points having won six, drawn seven and lost 23 of their league fixtures.
And former Boston United star Rowe, 24, reckons Rovers’ class of 2025-2026 should have made a much better fist of it in the William Hill Championship this season than missing out on the promotion play-offs by failing to finish in the second tier’s top four.
Rowe, whose fifth-placed team ended an up and down league campaign on 45 points after winning 3-2 at home to Ross County on Friday evening, told the Fife Free Press: “There's no excuses. We should have definitely been in the top four with the players we've got in the building this season.
"Next season, we just need to start from day one and push towards the end goal every month, which is promotion for this club.
"Whether that's winning the league or going up through the play-offs, however it comes, it doesn't really matter.
"I think the Scottish Championship is a really good league, to be honest. There's a lot of high-quality players.
"I've felt there's a lot more running and high-intensity work than when I played in England.
"Overall, I think it's a really competitive league up here. There's teams that you thought were going to be nowhere near the relegation zone and they were brought into it.
"We obviously went on a good run, pushed ourselves away from trouble and gave ourselves a chance at the play-offs. Obviously, we just missed out on that.