photo courtesy of John Vass

Glenafton Athletic are delighted to announce the appointment of Darren Henderson as the new manager of the club.  Kilmarnock-born Darren played at senior level for over 21 seasons with spells at Clyde, Stranraer (1), Clydebank, Queen of the South, Stranraer (2) , Ayr United (1), Hamilton Accies, Ross County, Raith Rovers, Forfar Athletic and Ayr United (2). All told he made over 530 appearances at senior level, just over 200 of these with Stranraer, and scored 85 goals. Darren moved to Cumnock Juniors from the Honest Men in 2005 where he teamed up with former Ayr boss Campbell Money. He briefly returned to the seniors with Stenhousemuir in January 2007, once again in the company of Campbell Money. The pair soon returned to Townhead, with Darren as Money’s assistant-manager and still pulling on the boots, typically now in the left-back position, and at 41years old appeared in the Scottish Junior Cup Final of 2008.

Darren joined Dalry Thistle in a player-coach role and in November 2010 he took over the hot-seat at Merksworth Park following the departure of John Garroch.  He led the Ayrshire District League side to the semi-final of the Scottish Junior Cup and after the disappointment of losing out to Musselburgh Athletic (on aggregate) he kept the side focused and steered them, with Garroch now in a supporting role, through a tough schedule of league games in hand to secure promotion to the Super League 1^st Division, and five days later resigned from the post with a view to finding a new challenge, something that we are not short of at Glenafton.

Joining Darren as his assistants are his former Dalry colleagues John Garroch and Sammy Conn along with Stevie Kerrigan.