Gretna 2008

Bottom of the Lowland League West is where Gretna 2008 have been sitting for three seasons running, and there is no sign yet of pulling clear of it: 17th of 18 last season, 17th of 18 the year before that, 17th of 19 the season before that.

The club exists at all because the old Gretna went bust. That one had shot up three divisions in a row under the money of Brooks Mileson and reached the Scottish Premier League in 2007, then lost him to illness and collapsed into administration within a year. Before the liquidation was even finalised, the supporters' trust registered a new club on 2 July 2008, run separately from the old set-up and trading as Gretna FC 2008 to keep the two apart. Raydale Park was still tied up with the old club, so the new one spent its first season across the border in Annan before it could come home.

The anvil on the badge points at Gretna Green's Blacksmith's Shop, the wedding venue that gives the town its name recognition, and it is where the nickname Anvils comes from. Early on the club moved fast for a phoenix side: the East of Scotland League First Division in its third season, then a run of regional cups either side of the Lowland League's launch in 2013, which Gretna 2008 joined as a founder member. A Southern Counties FA Challenge Cup went to Raydale Park last season.

Dalbeattie Star, from further along the same stretch of Dumfries and Galloway, remain the fixture that sharpens attention here. What the Anvils have not managed since those early cup wins is a route back up through the leagues.