Ray Jellema - appeal.

Elgin City have been given clearance to play goalkeeper Ray Jellema in Thursday’s crunch New Year derby clash with league leaders Peterhead.

The club launched an appeal against the red card shown to the City ‘keeper at Annan on Saturday with video evidence submitted to support the case that Jellema did not deny a scoring opportunity.

The SFA have accepted that City’s appeal should be considered at an appeals board on January 9 - and cleared the player to turn out against Peterhead pending that decision.

City boss Ross Jack said: “We are delighted that Ray has been given the all-clear to play at Peterhead.  We have every confidence to young Stewart Black but it would have been a lot to ask him to be thrown into such an important match.

“I would also like to thank Elgin City’s board for backing the decision to appeal the red card, taken after we had all looked carefully at the evidence produced by our video analysis team.

“It is our view that while we fully understand the penalty being awarded the red card was not justified - we can now only hope that the appeals board agree with that view.”

Jack has several injury problems ahead of Thursday’s match that he is keeping firmly in-house for the time being, while the manager is also busy trying to close several loan deals in the forthcoming transfer window.

However, it remains to be seen if these can be completed.  Jack said: “There are areas that certainly need strengthening in the squad and now would be the time to do that.

“We are still just six points off the pace of the promotion play-off positions with a game in hand.

“We are by no means out of the race but we do need to bolster the squad - as we have already seen this season injuries and suspensions can have a considerable effect on the side and that will increase as the season progresses.”