COWDENBEATH should know by the end of the week if they have been given the green light to house their Betfred Cup-tie with Hearts on October 10.

Club secretary David Allan was very hopeful that Tuesday's visit from the Scottish Football Association to check how Central Park was adhering to the Covid-19 regulations would see the Blues given the green light to host Hearts in their sectional fixture.

Meanwhile Cowden played Montrose in a friendly last Tuesday night which David gave a lot of good pointers to where a few tweaks were needed to their plans and on Thursday a special walk around the facilities was held to check how things were looking after the Montrose game.

Said David: "The Montrose match was literally so handy to see how things were developing towards what is needed for us to be able house the Hearts fixture.

"As a board have we have had a lot of input from the SFA, and local authority, about what is needed in terms of changing facilities for the teams and match officials but until you have a real dry run it is hard to if everything is shaping up OK.

"The friendly saw things in action in terms of housing a game for the first time since the Covid-19 regulations have come in and it allowed us to take on board the happenings of that evening and make a few tweaks to our planning.

"Thursday's walk around the facilities helped us look at how we can make a few changes before we hosted Tuesday's SFA visit."

The regulations have who can go where in a ground for a game from the players, backroom team to other people who are essential for a game to be house under he new regulations.

"It certainly is nothing like a normal home game experience," added David, "and after Tuesday's visit during the day we will have had the visit from Lowland League side CS Strollers for the evening friendly so we will be getting more used to the routine."

With fans looking like they will have to wait to return to Scottish football games for a spell yet due to the rise in coronavirus infections throughout the country Cowden are discussing with Hearts and East Fife about how they can provide a pay per view coverage of these two fixtures.

"We are very hopeful of being able to provide coverage for our fans of these two ties, in conjunction with our opponents, and also I think we have to really believe that there will be no fans allowed in to the League 2 opener with Annan Athletic on October 17", said David.

"So we are looking at how we can ensure there is a stream for our supporters to link in to, so there is plenty going on."

Manager Gary Bollan has completed his squad with the signings of striker Olly Hamilton , on loan from St Johnstone and Hearts front man, Cian Kavanagh (see page 31), who both impressed in the friendlies.

Then on Friday he completed the signing of St Johnstone goalkeeper Ross Sinclair (see picture) on loan. The 19 year-old is seen as a highly talented young 'keeper and spent the end of last season loan at Lowland League side BSC Glasgow recording three shut outs in four games.

So the squad is now in place for Tuesday night's trip to Methil for the opening Betfred tie with East Fife.