Spartans chief Craig Graham is on cloud 9 after incredible League Two bow

The Ainslie Park newcomers travel to East Fife this afternoon for their final League Two fixture where victory could still see Dougie Samuel's men finish runners-up to champions Stenhousemuir. Peterhead and Dumbarton, currently second and third respectively - are two points better off - go head to head at Balmoor.

What isn't in doubt is Spartans will kick off their promotion push next week as the play-offs semi-finals get underway with the outcome of this weekend's matches determining who their opponents will be.

It's an incredible feat for a club who were crowned Lowland League champions little more than 12 months ago. They also ran Premiership and city rivals Hearts agonisingly close in their Scottish Cup fourth-round clash in January, the Jambos grabbing an injury-time winner to progress with a narrow 2-1 victory in front of a bumper crowd.

However, there are also some personal milestones too. Last Saturday's 2-2 draw with Peterhead was Samuel's 500 match in charge while hot-shot striker Blair Henderson is nominated for PFA Scotland's League Two player of the year. Henderson, 29, who netted his 100th SPFL goal recently, has also been named in the team of the season alongside midfielder James Craigen and goalkeeper Blair Carswell registered his 100th clean sheet in a Spartans jersey.

"We are a club that prides itself on teamwork and everyone getting on well together, whether it be the board, coaching staff or the players, but it's also great when we've got milestones to celebrate," Graham told the Evening News. "For Dougie to reach 500 games is a phenomenal effort so I'm delighted for him and when he was presented with his quaich, everyone was just so proud of him for the efforts he's put in to get us to where we are.

"You've sometimes got to pinch yourself when you think how far we've come. This time last year we'd just won the Lowland League and had the difficulty of negotiating the play-offs. But we were fortunate to beat Dundee United and Arbroath in the League Cup in our first few games and although Stenhousemuir won the league comfortably, there's very little to choose between ourselves, Dumbarton and Peterhead.

"We want to finish as high as we can. There's prizemoney - a bigger financial reward so that's a great incentive for us. But we're also on a bit of a run so you want to go into the play-offs with a bit of momentum. We want to be firing on all cylinders.

"Obviously if there's an outside chance of being promoted then we have to do a bit of thinking, particularly in terms of infrastructure and all these things that you might need for League One. But I think beyond that, I know it's a bit of a cliche, but we just have to wait and see where we are come the end of the month. You treat each individual game as a cup final.

"It's been a brilliant year. There's so many good people in this league. The teams we've played in the other divisions in the cup, it's been so exciting. We've had to be on our toes in terms of all the new rules we've had to follow but we've enjoyed it. Every game is so close. It's a nice position to be in going into this afternoon's game knowing we're already in the play-offs regardless of the outcome."