Silent Saints as Hay witnesses one of football's odd mysteries

WILLIAM HUNTER

1 Apr 1991

IT was so quiet at Love Street that the shouts of the players carried to the back of the stand.

Some of us were trying to sleep up there.

That's not a complaint, not entirely.

It beats sitting on a bench in the Fountain Gardens down the street, waiting for somebody to turn on the water.

It is awesome (and can be therapeutic) to be made aware of with what little fuss and noise 4823 football worshippers can go about their devotion.

Anybody who passed the gate could have missed that there was a game inside.

They would have been only about half right.

For there was one of life's odd mysteries being enacted.

How can it be (this is the puzzle) that when two groups of trained gladiators are put up against each other in an arena with fixed dimensions and agreed rules, they sometimes make less of a spectacle than a bus queue?

Nothing-nothing against Hearts on a bumpy park gave David Hay, St Mirren's new manager, glimpses of potholes in the road ahead of him.

He watched from the stand.

Besides providing a panoramic view to his future, it meant one fewer empty seat.

Of his many qualifications for the job he chose to exercise his gift for mellifluous understatement.

"It wasn't too pleasing to the eye," he said.

What ails Saints so sorely is hard to see to an unprofessional eye.

They have several skilful players and many bonnie workers.

They seem to be fast enough.

Often they pass well in intricate patterns.

One of their problems could have to do with the trouble they experience getting their artistry and their energy to come together.

On Saturday they didn't start until shortly after the interval when a finicky referee, L B Thow, ordered off Steve Archibald, formerly of Clyde and some more famous clubs, whose names have become difficult to credit.

Only then did Tomas Stickroth, Brian Martin, and Paul Lambert have some promising attempts.

Norrie McWhirter had a great game throughout tireless, vigilant, and strong.

He is one rock on which a renewed St Mirren can be built.



Hearts had two chances, or three if a high header by Craig Levein is counted.

Derek Ferguson shot the ball so gently into Campbell Money's arms he might have been passing a baby to him and John Robertson hit a post.

Both seemed as surprised by their opportunities as did everybody else.

Archibald's misdemeanours were to loiter in the area of a free kick and later to complain when some rough treatment he received from two opponents was ignored by the ref.

He has been dismissed once already this season.

St Mirren loyalists remember that occasion well.

Without Archibald then, they watched winners.

Taken from the Herald