Hearts v St Johnstone: Rowan against the tide

Chris Tait
Tuesday 5 March 2013

A SUMMER move to St Johnstone has had its advantages for Rowan Vine.

With the switch having restored a sense of balance to his career and with a league match against Hearts tonight to prepare for, those should be well-established. But it is a Monday morning and so his priorities have been redefined; the striker collaring Michael Doughty, on loan from his former club Queens Park Rangers, in a corridor in St Johnstone's Stirling training base, winking and placing an order for his morning coffee: large latte, two sugars.

The exchange serves the assumption of the Englishman as a bit of a geezer. That is innocent enough since his London accent invites a certain stereotype but Vine would likely be wary of offering a handshake after his reputation had already taken hold; its grip having led to his career becoming strangled in England. The trip to Tynecastle is expected to mark his 29th appearance of a season in which he has emerged as St Johnstone's top scorer with seven goals, statistics which might appear modest for a striker who once cost Birmingham City £3m. Yet they will feel significant enough for Vine given his career had been carried over into the margins in recent years.

Or discounted completely at QPR. A loan spell had convinced the London club to part with £1m to take Vine from St Andrew's on a four-and-a-half-year deal in 2008 but it did not take long for such faith to fade, the final two years of that contract spent being passed around a series of lower league clubs on loan. Fractures to his left fibula and tibia just three months after signing permanently at Loftus Road had already injured his hopes of asserting himself but the greater scars have been left by QPR's foreign owners – led by Malaysian Tony Fernandes – whose ostracism of Vine included a brutal character assassination. It meant his requests for trials elsewhere were immediately smothered by the accepted rumour that he was more trouble than he's worth.

It is perhaps understandable, then, that such a humiliating episode is treated with a terse reference to "untrue things" leaving a stain on his reputation, although he has been able to feel more like himself in Perth. "It has been nice to get away from people who have got, I don't know, a certain opinion of you, which is sometimes formed unfairly," says Vine.

"It was all about me leaving QPR and not being on loan; you are judged completely different if you are on loan. If you a young player that's fine but if you are older on loan then it's because they don't want you, not that they want you to go and get games. So it was nice to get that clean break and I have played over 20 games. To do that this season is what I wanted so it's been fine so far."

That sentiment draws a broad grin and one that has become a common feature of his season. A debut against Hearts in August was followed by two red cards within a month and just a solitary goal – albeit one that would secure a 2-1 win over Celtic in September – but he has since raised his profile to help lift St Johnstone into the top six of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League. That has afforded Vine the room to exercise his lively personality.

"I've always maintained that I need a good run in the team but, due to different things over the last few years, I've not had that," he says. "I'm fully confident in my own ability and what level I can play at and it's been nice to be able to affect games. When I only have a few minutes on the pitch then I can't really affect the game but that's what I've been doing this season."

He has had to earn that opportunity, though. Vine's claims for inclusion following service with clubs such as Portsmouth, Birmingham and Luton Town were diluted by the pool of strikers at Steve Lomas' disposal. St Johnstone seemed to spend the summer stockpiling forwards and it is only in recent weeks that the side has settled on a preferred pairing, Vine operating up front with another player to have traversed the English lower leagues in Steven MacLean.

McDiarmid Park has been something of a centre for rehabilitation, then, but Vine is not treating it as a halfway house, even though the club have yet to open talks over a one-year option in his contract. "I've not had any conversation with the club and the first move will be made by them," said the 30-year-old, whose current deal ends in May. "It's been going all right. We've got a lot of young players and you try and set an example; that's part of your position in the team, to go out and encourage everyone. That's what I try to do."

Just so long as they don't mind getting the coffees in first.

Taken from the Herald