A Dunfermline man has been featured on a BBC football programme after making the leap from Sunday-league management to semi-professional Fort William FC.

Kyle Redpath took the reins in July after sending an application to the side “for the sake of it.” Tonight, he’s set to appear on TV in the BBC’s “A View from the Terrace”, with the episode available to watch on iPlayer already.

(Image: Iain Ferguson, Alba.photos.) Still based in Dunfermline, Mr Redpath spends around twelve hours a week travelling to training and matches, and that’s when Fort William are playing at home!

On top of that, he still finds time to manage the Sunday-league side Dunfermline West End.

He said: “It’s actually not too bad. I have training with Fort William on Tuesday, training with West End on Wednesday, a Fort William game on a Saturday, and then a West end game on a Sunday.

“It’s never a chore to me because I enjoy it and it still feels like a hobby.

“It certainly was a big jump in quality at first, although maybe not as big as you’d think, because there’s some great players at Sunday league.

“I think the most daunting thing for me was that I was coming from a team where it was a big group of my friends.

“Trying to be serious with them was difficult sometimes, but they were always onside. Walking in to meet players for the first time at Fort William, I had 38-year-olds that had all played in the Highland League, looking at me as a 27-year-old coming in who’s run a Sunday league team.

 “I think they were always going to be sceptical, but they were really welcoming, and from speaking to them I think they were happy that someone had took over and they still had a club to play for.”

(Image: Iain Ferguson, Alba.photos.) Discussing the recent View from the Terrace episode, he said: “I think filming started around 8 in the morning. They pretty much focused on the step up from Sunday league to Calley league and the fact that I run two teams at the same time.

The dedicated segment focuses on his journey and ability to juggle two teams at a time.

In 2022 Fort William FC were shown in a BBC documentary which described the side as “Britain’s worst football team.”

Mr Redpath said: “Some of the players are still there from those days, and they aren’t too keen to talk about it. We had a View from the Terrace up and their first question to me was ‘they’re not coming up here to take the mick out of us, are they?' That’s basically what the BBC documentary was.

“Now we’re in the North Caledonian League it is a bit different because they are winning games. I actually think that relegation was the best thing that happened to the club because it allowed them to just reset.”

Results have been mixed this season, with the side sitting at eight place in the table. Mr Redpath said: “You’d look at that and think ‘that’s not a position we’re wanting to be in’, but the chairman is a lot more understanding of the fact that there was never any expectation or great belief that we were going to be up there at the top of the league.

“The bulk of the squad are players who have come up from the reserves, and they finished bottom of the reserve league. The remit for me was always to be playing younger players and spend a year developing them, which I think we’ve done.

“Over time they’ll become established first team players and then in a couple of years we could challenge for the league.