Kean's Penalty Sees Saints into the Challenge Cup Final (2005)

(first published in the match programme for St. Mirren v Dundee, 27^th September 2025)

On 27^th September 2005, St. Mirren faced Morton in a highly-anticipated Bell's Challenge Cup semi-final at Love Street. The sides had met only once before in this competition; a second-round tie at Cappielow in 1993 which St. Mirren won 4-2 on their road to the Final. As well as hoping to go one step further, Saints also wanted to avenge a loss to the 'Ton in the Renfrewshire Cup at Love Street two months earlier.

Saints had made it to this stage following a 1-0 home win over Forfar Athletic, a 2-1 victory against Queen of the South at Palmerston and a 3-2 defeat of Stenhousemuir at Love Street, all of the goals having been scored by different players. Morton had disposed of Gretna, Brechin City and Stirling Albion enroute to the semi.

St. Mirren produced issue number seven of their standard 32-page 2005/06 programme for the match, printed in full colour on glossy paper throughout and priced at £2. The front cover displayed the two Club crests and the match details, below an action image of John Baird.

On page three, Gus MacPherson reflected on the previous week's loss to Motherwell in the third round of the CIS Cup. His assertion that football was often decided by fractions of inches was supported by the Motherwell match, in which a disallowed goal and the woodwork had come to the Steelmens' rescue in regulation time before they overcame Saints 2-0 in the extra period.

The Manager looked ahead to the tie with Morton and praised his counterpart Jim McInally for the Greenock side's progress so far in the Second Division and in the Challenge Cup. The Saints' boss was well aware of the pressure from the fans to win every game, but more so with this being a "Derby Match" and a semi-final. He therefore urged the fans to make the noise that would stir up the enthusiasm and effort in the players.

"Black and White News" welcomed match mascots Stewart and Scott Booth from Barrhead, congratulated Kirk Broadfoot for his Man of the Match award against Motherwell and displayed a photo of the Bell's Player of the Month for August, Kevin McGowne.

Two pages of pen pictures of the Morton side and "Marketing Matters" preceded David Grier's "View from the North Bank" in which he anticipated the derby encounter. Morton had won the last three "pre-season friendly" Renfrewshire Cups but, during that time St. Mirren could claim the higher league ascendency and this evening's encounter was deemed to be of much greater importance.

"Fan Profile", Willie Bell's SMISA piece and the "Last Time Out" review of the Motherwell CIS Cup match led to the centre page spread, featuring the 2005/06 St. Mirren squad.

Jim Hamilton's "St. Mirren Memories" looked back at the Renfrewshire sides' only meeting in the Challenge Cup of 1993 and also featured some earlier derbies from the 1960s and 1980s. This was followed by photo action from the CIS Cup tie.

Brian Wright's "Saints Through the Seventies" looked back at St. Mirren's extraordinary 4-1 win over Rangers in the 1972 League Cup sectional match at Ibrox, whilst "They Wore Both Jerseys" by Jim Crawford featured Derek Hamilton, a star of the St. Mirren side during the 1980s who retired from football at the end of the 1990/91 season whilst at Morton.

A page on St. Mirren's Challenge Cup History showed that they had thus far been to one final (v Falkirk in 1993), two semi-finals (Ayr United in 1993 and Queen of the South in 2002) and had been involved in two penalty shoot outs, losing 4-5 to Stranraer in 1994 and defeating Ross County 6-5 in 2002.

Statistical pages, fixtures, team line ups, player sponsorship and an abundance of adverts filled out the remainder of the issue.

A crowd of 6,542 saw Morton take the game to St. Mirren, but a mixture of poor finishing by the Greenock Club and good, steady goalkeeping by Chris Smith kept the home side in the game. With only five minutes of the regulation ninety remaining, Morton should have taken the lead, but Chris Millar pulled his shot from 15 yards out well wide of the target.

The sides looked to be more even during the extra time period, but still could not be separated and the dreaded penalty shoot-out followed.

After Billy Mehmet and Stewart Greacen had despatched their spot kicks, John Sutton sent his attempt high of the target and Chris Millar hit the post. Charlie Adam and Peter Weatherson both converted, as did Kirk Broadfoot, but when Scott McLaughlin's attempt was saved by Chris Smith, the advantage fell to the home side. Stewart Kean stepped up to settle the tie in some style and Saints were in their first national final for 12 years.