Pre-season is well under way at Clydebank for the players, unless you’re Andy Biddulph.

The former Dumbarton under-20s striker was 15 minutes into his debut against Harmony Row last Tuesday when the striker broke his hand.

And it’s been a frustrating for him, both on and off the field.

He said: “I’m not actually sure how it happened to be honest – I jumped up and I heard something snap and that’s as much as I know.

“What I think has happened is that it got caught on someone’s top or under someone’s arm and it’s bent the fingers back and they snapped.

“I’ve broken things before but this by far the worst, it’s in a back slab cast at the moment so it’s got room to swell, I have to go back up on August 2 to get it looked at by a specialist.

“It’s making the simple things hard to do, like putting on a pair of trousers or socks on, it’s just really hard – I can’t move any of my fingers.

“I put on a pair of jeans the other day and it took me about 20 minutes to do my belt up.”

It was Biddulph’s first game since April, and while he was enjoying his first pre-season with the Bankies, he was understandably frustrated with his run of luck.

He added: “It was my first game I’d played since Dumbarton, the last game I played was in April so that was the first time I had a bit of a run out and 15 minutes into it I’d done that which is quite unlucky to say the least.

“I’ve loved my time at Clydebank so far, it’s been brilliant.

“It’s a really good bunch of boys and the management have been good to me.

“It’s been a great standard at training. I can’t fault it in any way.”

The 20-year-old was playing in Dumbarton’s under-20 team last year, until the Sons decided to stop running the development squad, citing budget cuts as the cause.

Biddulph said that the players were all shocked when they found out, but he has moved quickly to sort out his football future.

Biddulph added: “They said to us that we’d bring you in for a meeting for a wee chat as most teams do at the end of the season.

“I thought it was going to be individual meetings but they just sat us down in the dressing room and told us that they wouldn’t be running the team next year.

“I was never expecting that.

“The two managers at Dumbarton said to us that we’ll try and help you get clubs. But I’d been speaking to Josh [Lumsden], he came from Dumbarton as well and he said he’d speak to Budgie and see what he says.”

Biddulph says he was impressed with Budgie and the coaching team, and it was something a lot of his friends and colleagues reiterated.

He said: “He’s been brilliant, it’s been a really good time and everyone’s been welcoming, they know their stuff as well. I’d heard quite a lot of good things from Josh, and he spoke highly of the management, the way the club is run and the boys as well.

"My old manager couldn’t speak highly enough of Budgie either, so that was quite a big thing in my decision.”