A COUPLE of years back, Dunfermline found themselves wrapped up in one of those intermittent quarrels which serve only to remind us what a godawful small affair most of professional sport is. Stuck hard by the Firth of Forth and the North Sea, they were and are a club with the collar of their coat pulled perpetually up around their ears to ward off the elements and after a few particularly rough winters where they were having to spend a fortune on calling off games and training sessions because there was scarcely a patch of grass to be found north of Edinburgh, they installed a plastic pitch in East End Park. In a league where the two teams at the top of the table have been playing in the knock-out stages of the Champions League, the �50,000 or so a year that Dunfermline's plastic pitch saved allowed them open their belt just a notch or two for just a short spell.

Problem was, it was a pain to play on.

That went for everyone in the beginning . . .Dunfermline included . . . but, naturally enough, more so for the visiting teams as time went on. Uefa had no problem with it under the conditions that the pitch was a Uefaapproved one and that it passed a postinstallation inspection. It wasn't Uefa who were affected, though, and the rest of the SPL got together and forced a third condition on matters, namely that it had to meet with the approval of a majority of the 12 SPL clubs.

In a grubby little spat weighed down by rampant self-interest on all sides, Dunfermline lost the subsequent vote 8-4 and the pitch had to go. More to the point, it had to go somewhere other than the tip. You can throw away a late lead in the SPL but for most sides, throwing away so much as an unused paperclip is criminal.

So welcome to Pitreavie Playing Fields on the outskirts of Dunfermline where, for �35 between you all each week, you and your mates can play five-a-side on an actual SPL pitch. One that when you're not on it, an actual SPL club makes use of. And that's just the peak rate. Play before five o'clock and it's only �20. A godawful small affair.

Stephen Kenny sits in the bar in Pitreavie and, in that endearingly earnest and hushed way of his, paints a picture of just how grim a situation he was faced with when Dunfermline spirited him away from the Brandywell last November. It was one of the wettest months in Scotland since records began (and that, you'd have to imagine, is no mean feat), so wet in fact that even the plastic pitch was unplayable at times. That wasn't his biggest problem, though, for even had he had the use of Hampden Park on a daily basis, back then he really didn't have a squad to train. Even a man as used to being parachuted into apparently hopeless drop zones as Kenny couldn't but be stunned by the extent of the casualties. "I've never encountered such a terrible injury list as I did when I came here, " he says. "I remember getting an injury report list about a fortnight after I arrived and there were nearly 20 players on it. There was 11 who were out injured, another four or five who could train but not play and another four or five who could play with knocks. I couldn't believe it.

"At one stage, Dundee United beat us 5-0 but the side I had to put out was a reserve team, basically an under-18 team. There just wasn't anyone else at the club.

"We had to do some work on the infrastructure of the club. The place was very understaffed and basically the way things were done behind the scenes was very wasteful. You have to have people in place who have the knowledge and expertise to do the right thing. There was a continuing scenario here for a while that when a player got injured, another was signed in his place. And then when he got injured, another was signed and so on and so forth. I don't want to be criticising the people who were here before me, because they were all good people, but after a while you got a situation where you have a big squad of injured or unfit players because they weren't being rehabilitated properly."

Then he stops himself.

"I'd really rather not dwell on that though, because it sounds like I'm complaining or trying to come up with excuses. We got five players in the transfer window and nobody left and most of them are back from injury now. We're actually going to St Mirren with almost a full squad."

There are, for all intents and purposes, really only two issues left to be resolved in the Scottish season and Kenny's side is involved in them both. The win over Hibs in last Tuesday's Scottish Cup semi-final replay means Kenny will be leading his side out at Hampden against Celtic in the season-ending showpiece on 26 May. It's a worry for another day, though, because tomorrow night he takes his side up to Paisley for the showdown on which his whole season effectively hinges.

Beat St Mirren and Dunfermline will be one point off safety and carrying a momentum undreamed off only a couple of months ago.

Draw or lose, and they're as good as down.

"At the minute we're fighting and I think that if we get a win against St Mirren, it will be difficult to see us not staying up. A victory will keep up our momentum and I could really see us seeing out the season. And if we stay up, I believe that. with the right preparation, we can make a real impact on next season. I know that's big talk for a team at the bottom of the league but I really believe that.

"People say you have to be realistic and accept that any progress you're going to make will be gradual. I don't see it like that at all. I honestly think that if we can stay up this year, then it won't be a matter of improving to ninth next year, then seventh, then fifth the year after that. I would approach it by trying to see the bigger picture first and then trying to get there as quickly as you can. Your progression doesn't always have to be logical or gradual."

His has never been. There was no logic in the idea of a European night at Flancare Park, nothing gradual in him winning a league title with Bohemians at a time in his life when plenty of the players in the division were older than him. At Longford, Bohs and Derry, his impact was immediate each time. His principles have been the same wherever he has gone. Get to work on the day-to-day stuff and Saturday will eventually take care of itself. He's brought a conditioning coach from Derry and a new club physio from Hearts and it's all starting to bear fruit at the right time.

It's been hard though. Hard on him, hard on his wife and four daughters who are seeing out the school year back in Donegal.

Leaving in the first place was difficult because he'd grown to love where they were. So much so, in fact, that he says if they're ever to move back to Ireland, it most likely won't be to their native Dublin but to the north-west they'd come to call home.

"I've found it hard being away from my family. They're coming over to join me now in a few weeks when the schools finish and that's what I'm looking forward to most of all. But I've found that side of it difficult.

Because without them, it's only natural that you question yourself and wonder have you done the right thing. When you're nine points adrift and a goal down as we were against Inverness a couple of weeks ago, it tests your resolve and of course you wonder.

It's only natural. But you have to believe in what you're doing and when you're backed into a corner you have to really fight for your right to exist as someone in this industry.

"I haven't been able to get home enough because you just never have the time.

There's something to do every day, even on the off days. There's always players to get back from injury or reserve team matches to watch. Maybe I should have made more of an effort, maybe it would have been good to switch off a bit more. But I couldn't do that. I had so much to learn about the league itself that I couldn't take much time away from it. But I wouldn't be in a hurry to move again. Relocating when you have young children is one of the most difficult things you can do. I'm moving my family here in a month or so and I really don't see me doing that again for a few years."

And who knows where those years will find him? He won't say that Dunfermline is a rung on the ladder for him but it's impossible not to hope that there's a place somewhere higher up the food chain for someone with his brand of quiet excellence and selfassurance.

Somewhere that might even charge more than 35 quid for a go on its training pitch.

SCOTTISH PREMIERLEAGUE ST MIRREN v DUNFERMLINE Tomorrow, Love Street, 8.00