Jags boss delighted as Dunga returns to Showpark

Nov 19 2008 by Paul Thomson, East Kilbride News

JAGS boss Colin Mitchell is delighted to have Steven McClung back at the club and admitted he spent “every other day on the phone” trying to convince him to return to the Showpark.

‘Dunga’ left East Kilbride Thistle for Petershill back in July, but after falling out of favour with coach Stevie Easton, the 25-year-old has returned to his old club.

He officially re-signed last week after featuring as a trialist against Kilbirnie.

He made his second debut for the club during the weekend’s 3-2 defeat at home to Clydebank.

Mitchell couldn’t be happier to have Thistle’s top goalscorer from last season back in the ranks.

He said this week: “Getting Dunga back is great and hopefully he’ll start scoring some goals for us again.

“When he went to Petershill, he got off to a good scoring start, but then he got left out of the team and other players came into the club.

“But we knew this was happening and he was a great player for us so we wanted to bring him back.

“I was on the phone every other day to him trying to convince him to come back and all the players wanted him to return as well so we managed to get a deal done and it’s great that he’s back.”

When McClung left the Jags in the summer he said he wanted a new challenge and insisted that after three years at Thistle he was “going a bit stale” so was pleased at moving to a bigger club.

But now that he’s back, does Mitchell doubt his committment?

“Absolutely not,” said Mitch. “He wanted to come back here and I’d heard through the pipeline that four other clubs came in for him at the same time but he wanted to come here.

“To be fair to him, he’s been working really hard in training and has done well in the two games he’s had.

“He’s missing a bit of match fitness because he’s not been playing all the time – but I wouldn’t question his commitment.

“It’s now a case of us getting him up to full fitness and getting him back to scoring goals for EK Thistle.”