St. Mirren's Debut in European Competition (1980)

(first published in the match programme for St. Mirren v Valur, 1^st August 2024)

On 17^th September 1980, St. Mirren made their debut in major European Competition when they were drawn against Swedish side I F Elfsborg in the First Round of the UEFA Cup. The first leg was scheduled to be played at the Ryavallon Stadium in the textile town of Boras, some 50km east of Gothenburg.

The home Club produced a 32-page programme, measuring 26cm by 19cm, with a 3Kr price tag (around 30p). The content was printed on glossy paper throughout and much use was made of the home team's colours of yellow and black, with full colour being reserved mainly for adverts.

In fact, the majority of the programme was occupied by adverts but each and every page did contain some reading content. The opening page carried welcome messages in both Swedish and English and stated that the Swedes held Scottish football in high esteem due to the national side's participation in the previous two World Cups and St. Mirren were deemed to be worthy representatives of their country's football.

This was followed by team photos of both sides, a preview of the participating clubs in that season's UEFA Cup and a history of the relatively new tournament which had only been inaugurated in 1973. A potted history of the Buddies preceded a piece from Lars Hildingsson, translated as "Candies from St. Mirren", and focussing on a number of Saints players, past and present.

The current League tables showed that Elfsborg were already three-quarters of the way through their 28-game season and occupied fifth place, six points off the lead. Saints, meanwhile, had made a poor start to their Premier League campaign and were in third-bottom place with just three points from five matches.

Two pages were devoted to an interesting piece on Orjan Persson, the Swedish left-winger who had spent six years in Scotland with both Dundee United and Rangers and who had featured for the national side in the 1974 World Cup in West Germany.

The centre pages displayed a vast array of colourful adverts, surrounding a relatively tiny panel containing the team pools and match officials.

The second half of the programme began with an article from the Swedish FAs Information Manager, Sten R. Aylmer on "100 Years of Scottish Football". A more detailed list of the current St. Mirren staff sat opposite Elfsborg's statistics for the season, including scores, scorers and attendances. Towards the end of the issue, Lars Hildingsson returned with another piece on the visitors and appeared to claim that Manager Jim Clunie was the best manager in the Club's history {probably based upon recent successes in the Anglo Scottish Cup and European qualification).

This programme, despite its significance to St. Mirren collectors, is not a difficult one to find for a reasonable price.

Rain had started to fall in Boras at lunchtime on the day of the match and continued throughout the game, but the 300 or so travelling fans didn't seem to care and their noise proceeded to drown out their Swedish counterparts in the crowd of 3,776.

Elfsborg started strongly, but missed a couple of early chances. However, after 15 minutes, the slippery conditions played a part when home 'keeper Roger Svensson sent a clearance deep into the St. Mirren half. As the ball skidded towards goal, confusion between Billy Thomson and Jackie Copland in the Saints defence allowed Swedish Under 21 internationalist Lennart Nilsson to take advantage of a rebound off Thomson and open the scoring from ten yards.

Elfsborg could have doubled their lead shortly after, but Hans-Olof Gustavsson's free header from close range went past the post.

St. Mirren then took control of the match and, after Frank McDougall had come close with two good efforts, Doug Somner equalised in the 43^rd minute. A superb long ball from John McCormack was dummied by McDougall and Somner raced between Swedish defenders Leif Malberg and Ingemar Svensson. He drew the goalkeeper and sent a right foot shot home at the far post.

Peter Weir began to influence the game in the second half and his runs and crosses caused problems for the home defence. The visitors thought they had taken the lead after 67 minutes when one of Weir's crosses was headed home by McDougall, but the Finnish referee ruled that the striker had been offside.

St. Mirren were not to be denied and, just five minutes later, a Billy Stark cross was headed out by Ahlstrom into the path of Billy Abercromby and the midfielder's drive in off the post gave St. Mirren a well-deserved first leg lead.

The return leg at Paisley two weeks later ended in a dour 0-0 draw, but all the work had been done in Sweden and Saints progressed to the next round.