Former Dumbarton midfielder Kyle Hutton has lifted the lid on his exit from the club during the summer – and revealed that East Kilbride were able to make him promises that the Sons weren’t.

The central midfielder, who won the club’s Player of the Year award last season, has joined up with former Dumbarton boss Stevie Aitken at the ambitious Lowland League outfit.

Hutts, who joined Sons in July 2017 and made more than 100 appearances, admitted it wasn’t easy for him to leave the club that brought him into part-time football.

Speaking to the Reporter, the former Rangers man said the project being built at East Kilbride – who lay in seventh place in the Lowland League standings when the 2019-20 campaign was brought to an early conclusion, having won the title the previous season – is something he was keen to be a part of.

He said: “It was a difficult decision to leave. I got on really well with the gaffer and I’ve got a lot of friends there with my teammates and the fans.

“The whole pandemic thing factored into it, with everything being up in the air and Dumbarton not knowing what was happening with contracts, and that’s when I got a call from Stevie Aitken.

“He just spoke to me about everything – the project he was building there, and the types of player he was trying to sign – and it got me a bit excited.

“When I was asking Dumbarton what was happening, and what type of players they were trying to sign, they didn’t have answers because of the pandemic, and they didn’t know their budget.

“It was difficult in the end, but that’s football and players come and go.”

Hutton came close to an unwanted record at the club, as he was just six games short of playing the most amount of games without scoring a goal for the club as an outfield player at the C&G Systems Stadium.

The 29-year-old leaves behind his work colleague and best friend Stuart Carswell – and Hutton couldn’t leave without Carsy having one more dig at him.

He added: “Carsy was saying that was the main reason why I left – so I didn’t get that record!

“That’s one thing that I wish I’d done at Dumbarton – score a goal.

“The two of us are close on and off the pitch so I think he was a little bit gutted and annoyed at me at the same time for leaving him.

“He’ll be fine.”