Jack Compton can't wait to repay Falkirk for his second chance

JACK Compton is desperate to make his professional debut for Falkirk as he looks to make up for lost time.

Tony Mowbray took Compton, now 21, to West Brom as a teenager but the winger failed to recover his promising form after suffering a serious knee injury.

Compton ended up at Blue Square South side Weston-super-Mare after a failed spell at Brighton, but regular football brought back his confidence.

Falkirk fought off interest from the likes of Newcastle to secure Compton's signature last month and he is now eligible to make his debut in today's Clydesdale Bank Premier League clash against St Johnstone.

"I'm really excited," Compton said. "A lot of people have asked whether I'll be nervous but I'm more excited to be playing against top teams.

"I was at Portsmouth for five years until I was 17 and Tony signed me from there.

"He helped me a lot and I appreciate what he and Mark Venus did. They gave me a lot of pointers, what I needed to work on. When he signed me, it helped me improve a lot.

"I stayed three years at West Brom. I started off really well and got close to breaking into the side but I had a big injury, I shattered my cartilage in my knee and was out for five months.

"That really shattered everything at West Brom because I came back a different player. I didn't have any confidence. It had a big effect on me because I was still at a young age. But now I've got my confidence by playing every week for Weston-super-Mare, hopefully I can help Falkirk and establish myself here."

Compton's form alerted several managers, including Eddie May.

"I started in February and helped them stay up," Compton said. At the start of this season I said to myself I wanted to be at a professional club by the end of the season. Obviously, it has come sooner. It was quite flattering how many clubs were interested but as soon as I came up here, I knew I wanted to be up here."

May puts much attacking emphasis on his two wide midfielders and Compton is sure he can add something to Falkirk's attempts to get off the bottom of the SPL.

"I'm a natural wide-left player," he said. "The way they have been playing lately is definitely going to suit me."

St Johnstone are chasing a third successive league victory after beating Motherwell 3-1 at Fir Park on Boxing Day and a 1-0 home win over St Mirren the previous week.

Manager Derek McInnes, said: "We want to be greedy and get three in a row and any team would take that little run of form. That is our motivation, to start the year with another win, but we know it will be difficult against Falkirk.

"They will be determined to stop us after losing 3-1 to us earlier in the season at our place. We started the game well but Falkirk came back and at one point the game could have gone either way.

"It just showed again that there is little between the teams in the SPL.

"We have been playing well in recent weeks but if we lower our standards, we will be vulnerable to any side."