St Mirren are looking to land a fourth Cowdenbeath player of the summer, but this time they face a fight to get their man.
Former Central Park gaffer Danny Lennon has already taken Darren McGregor, Paul McQuade and Peter Bradley with him to Paisley.
Now Lennon has his sights set on 31-year-old striker Gareth Wardlaw.
But the former Raith Rovers attacker is at the centre of a registration dispute which has not only the two clubs at loggerheads but also the SFA and SFL.
Earlier this summer, while still the Cowdenbeath manager, Lennon re-signed Wardlaw for a further year.
However, a mistake made, according to Cowdenbeath, by Lennon then occurred in the process of registering the player with the Scottish Football Association.
The SFA have now ruled Wardlaw became a free agent at the expiry of his last deal, convincing St Mirren they can sign him for nothing.
The SFL, who received a copy of the documentation, however take the view he remains a signed Cowdenbeath player.
“We are told this is a unique case and the situation could drag on for months unless we can come up with an amicable agreement to resolve it,” commented Cowden managing director Scott Brewster last night.
“We feel for Gareth who effectively is in limbo and appreciate he wants to play in the SPL.
“But as far as we are concerned he has signed a legally-binding contract with Cowdenbeath and is our player.”
Meanwhile, Colin Cameron looks set to become player-assistant manager to new Cowden boss Jimmy Nicholl.
Nicholl and Cameron whose relationship goes all the way back to Raith Rovers where, during the early 90s the former launched the latter’s highly successful playing career held talks on Monday evening and Cameron could be in place quickly.
“I’ve spoken to Mickey and our discussions were very positive”‘ said Nicholl.
“He wants to come in and we should know whether that’s going to happen by Thursday.”
In addition to trying to secure Cameron, both to assist him and enhance the playing squad, Nicholl is looking to sign up to six young players on full-time deals.
“We’ve only got four full-timers in at the minute and although there are another two on top of that I want to get the numbers up to 10-12,” he said.
“The idea would be to either bring in some 18-19 year-olds who have been released by bigger clubs or get lads here on loan.”
Nicholl is also finalising details of a programme of pre-season friendlies.
Already confirmed are matches with Sauchie Juniors (a) on July 6 and Stenhousemuir (a) on July 17 which sandwich a previously announced trip to Brechin (Tuesday, July 13.).
He’s working on a possible game in Belfast and a fixture at Hamilton (July 15).