By Amanda Little

Last updated 16:08, Monday, 21 July 2008

Scott Dobie is determined to transform himself from bit-part player to first-team regular at Carlisle United this season.

Scott Dobie (left) and Grant Smith

The Cumbrian forward is enjoying his first proper pre-season for three years after seeing his career hit the buffers during an injury-wrecked three years.

A serious hip injury limited him to just 23 starts and four goals in his three years at Nottingham Forest and he admits he was still playing catch-up on his team-mates when he returned to Carlisle in January.

But the 29-year-old is reaping the benefits of United’s demanding pre-season schedule and hopes to establish himself as a key part of boss John Ward’s starting line-up.

Dobie played the opening 45 minutes of Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Partick Thistle as a central striker after last season’s top scorer Danny Graham was ruled out of the friendly at Firhill with blisters on his feet.

He said: “Pre-season training has been really hard work – but there are no complaints from me as I’m just glad to be back playing football.

“When I came in last season, I just wanted to do the best I could for the squad and now I want to be established as a starting player.

“Hopefully I will start more games last season but when I first came to the club the team was doing really well.

“This season is a fresh start and I’ll really benefit from pre-season training.

“I was out for two years with my hips problem, which needed two operations, so I haven’t had a full pre-season since I was 27.

“Once you miss pre-seaosn, you are stopping and starting all the time and picking up niggling little injuries.

“We put in a lot of hard work last week in Glasgow, training twice a day, and we got a lot out of it.

“The pre-season games are going to get harder as we go on and it really helps to make your game sharper and make you more focused mentally.”

Danny Graham, who sat out Saturday’s game, is expected to be fit for tomorrow’s friendly at the Deva Stadium against Chester, kick off at 7.45pm.