Goodfellow to miss the start

Ryan Goodfellow is set to miss this weekend's opening tournament at Spartans.

The 21 year old keeper who was at the Edinburgh club briefly as a youth, returned home from holiday with pneumonia and after several days in Borders General Hospital he is now on the road to recovery. Unfortunately the illness has weakened him too much to be able to appear on the playing field yet. Speaking exclusively to the club website Ryan told the story:-

"I felt ill on the last day of my holiday in Majorca and on the plane coming back I was struggling to get my breath. My friend had to drive my car back up from Manchester and when my doctor sent me in to A and E they checked my oxygen levels. They had dropped to 79% and from there I was kept in.

"It was pneumonia in my lung, it was all clogged through something I have picked up from air conditioning or on the plane - something that I had breathed in."

Ryan reported back for pre season training with the rest of the Dunfermline players but restricted himself initially to light work. Thankfully he feels that he is getting much better everyday. Eventually he was able to do a bit of running and training with goalkeeping coach Brian Potter.

"I will have to take my time because it will be a lot worse if it comes back again. If I overdo things it could set me back even further so I have to be careful. It is difficult because you are desperate to get back, I will just take it day by day."

This comes as a real blow to Ryan who has ambitions to push Ryan Scully hard for the number one shirt this season. He shared everyone's disappointment on the final day of last season:-

"It was devastating because the whole season we had just dreamt of getting up into the Championship. To not make it was gutting but that has made us all the more hungry for this season. Without Rangers in the league everybody feels that we have a massive chance; our main aim is to push and win the league. Everybody is confident that if we play well we can do it.

"You noticed last season that it is a hard league, every team is strong this year but we know many of the teams. A lot of teams will look at us as the ones to beat which will put more pressure on us but we have to be confident."

In Ryan Goodfellow's absence it is likely that U20s keeper Jamie Wilson will step up to don the gloves.