St. Mirren Move Closer to the European Spot (1985)

(first published in the match programme for St. Mirren v Hearts, 6^th April 2024)

Heading towards the last few fixtures of the 1984/85 season, St. Mirren were in a three-way battle with Hearts and Dundee for fifth place in the Premier Division, a spot that would guarantee them entry to the following season's UEFA Cup.

Saints met the men from Dens Park on 6^th April 1985 for what would be a massive four-pointer, both sides having suffered midweek defeats at the hands of their traditional rivals. On the previous Tuesday, Saints had gone down 3-2 at home to Morton and 24 hours later Dundee left Tannadice having been thrashed 4-0 by Dundee United. Those results left St. Mirren trailing Hearts by one point, with Dundee two points further behind but with a game in hand.

St. Mirren's programme for the season was a 20-page, B5-sized publication, printed black on white gloss paper throughout, but with a striking red, black and white front cover and a colour advert on the back. Kilmarnock-based photographer Frank Tocher was in his first season as Editor and his action photos and host of features gave the programme a fresh and professional look.

The front cover for the issue against Dundee displayed the full match details below an action shot from the recent away match against Dundee United. Club sponsors Graham's Buses were given a mention and the price tag was set at 40p.

On page three, Manager Alex Miller's "A. M Report", concentrated on the team's performance at Tannadice two weeks earlier. Injuries had caused the postponement of the reserve match at Love Street, but this meant that deputy goalkeeper Jim Stewart could travel with the first team. It was just as well, as Campbell Money aggravated a shoulder injury in the warm-up and Stewart was called upon to replace him.

Despite taking the lead after just forty-five seconds, Saints went behind before the interval and eventually lost 3-1. The Manager was particularly disappointed as the sides around them had picked up points. He saw the forthcoming match against the Dens Park men as a chance to halt their challenge and, perhaps getting ahead of himself, stressed the importance of the final match of the season against Hearts.

Dundee came under the spotlight on page four, the piece focussing on their season thus far. It was hoped that the forthcoming fixture would follow the trend of the earlier encounters with the home side taking the points. The page opposite displayed match action from those meetings.

"Paisley Past" recalled (in very small text) a meeting between St. Mirren and Rangers at Love Street in November 1947 which Saints won 2-1. There was a double celebration that day when news filtered through that the reserve side had also prevailed 3-2 at Ibrox. In a similar vein "In the Past", researched and written by John Byrne, recalled previous meetings between Dundee and St. Mirren and followed this up with an appreciation of the Dees' veteran goalkeeper Bill Brown.

A list of St. Mirren's results for the season sat alongside a diary of the previous week's events and preceded "Editor's Notes", which anticipated a grandstand finish from Saints in the final few League fixtures to secure that last European place.

"Buddy Talk" was a forum for readers to air their views, however most of it appeared to be complaints about mis-identification of players in other publications and omissions of favourite players' photos from the programme.

An innovation in this season's programme was the "Season Ticket Voucher", where presentation of at least fifteen of the seventeen possible vouchers would enable entry to a draw for two season tickets for season 1985/86. It was still possible for readers to obtain back issues of the programme by post but, even at this stage, no less than six of the issues had sold out.

Alex Bell's Page looked at former Love Street favourite Gerry Baker and posed a ten-question Quick Quiz. On the opposite page, a photo of Ian Cameron celebrating his recent opener against Rangers formed the basis for a Caption Competition. More photo action of Campbell Money against Rangers and the Team line-ups brought the issue to a close.

For the match itself, a crowd of 3.571 witnessed a six-goal thriller. David Winnie opened the scoring for Saints with a header from a Tommy Wilson cross after six minutes. Campbell Money then saved a penalty from Bobby Connor but, just before the interval, former Saint John McCormack did level the scores.

Within the space of three second half minutes, Gardner Speirs and Brian Gallagher scored to put the home side in command. Speirs netted a fourth goal with his second long-range effort and, although McCormack got a late consolation for the visitors, the match ended 4-2. This result, allied to Celtic's defeat of Hearts, lifted Saints into fifth place and closer to that European place.