Ricky Little will set his alarm even earlier on Saturday to make his regular 250-mile round trip from Ayrshire to Arbroath.
Little will set off at 8am for a ‘home game’ at Gayfield against an Ayr United side that is based just 17 miles from his house in Kilwinning.
It’s a journey Little has become accustomed to over the last nine years.
Since 2013, Little has made 310 appearances for Arbroath.
He is one of the founding members of the team that has soared from second bottom of League Two to Championship title contention.
His dedication to the Gayfield cause is admirable and that’s why he won’t moan at boss Dick Campbell’s decision to schedule a training session on Saturday morning.
“The manager wants us in on Saturday morning for a session,” said Little.
“He did it a few weeks ago because we missed training due to a midweek game and we beat Dunfermline after it.
“We didn’t play as well as we can that day but we won.
“It gives us a chance to focus, chat and eat together.
“We’re all in this together and anything we can do to make our team bond stronger has got to help.
“I’ll be away at 8am but I’m not going to moan. Why would I?
“It’s a couple of extra hours away from the house but I’m not the only one making that sacrifice.
“Michael McKenna lives the other side of Edinburgh and he makes the journey up without complaining.
“The one thing you can say about all of us is we have a strong work ethic. We’ll give everything we’ve got in the last seven games.”
Ricky Little: We can learn from defeat
Arbroath suffered their biggest defeat of the season last week when they crashed to a 3-0 loss at Inverness.
Remarkably, it was only their FOURTH defeat in 29 league matches.
They also haven’t lost back-to-back games in the Championship for a year.
Arbroath held onto top spot for almost three months before the Caley defeat saw them fall two points behind Kilmarnock.
But defender Little hopes they can bounce back quickly.
“We don’t want to lose any game,” added Little.
“But sometimes you need something different to happen to get a kick up the backside.
“I’d rather it was a big win but there’s no getting away from the fact we’ve been in a mini-slump.
“We’ve been scraping draws in games that we should have lost.
“Now that we have lost there’s a renewed focus. We have at least seven huge games to go and have to play all the teams around about us.
“I don’t think any team will win their last seven games so let’s see where we are at the end of the season.”
