St Mirren 3 Hearts 2: Saints write their names in league cup history after 67 years

Keith Jackson

THE Buddies finally landed the silverware after contesting the League Cup every year since its inception in 1946.
The team celebrates The team celebrates
Danny Lawson/PA Wire

IT’S taken them 67 years to get here and to finally wrap their colours around this shiny lump of silver. So, in the end, another 36 minutes was never going to make that much of a difference.

That’s how long it took for St Mirren’s players to finally arrive at yesterday’s League Cup Final and although Danny Lennon and his players went on to carve out one of their club’s greatest triumphs, the truth is they risked becoming history long before they looked like making it.

One goal down inside 10 minutes to a strike from Ryan Stevenson, it could have been three, maybe even four, inside a whirlwind opening 30 minutes which very nearly blew St Mirren’s dreams away.

But then the clock struck 36 minutes, Esmael Goncalves found an empty net and a fairytale, 67 years in the making, was about to become reality amidst an outpouring of delight and utter delirium. You could call it Panda-monium.

The Buddies have contested the League Cup every year since it was introduced to the footballing calendar in 1946 and finally their day had arrived.

When die-hard Saint Steve Thompson smacked home a second goal at the start of the second half, Lennon and his group were surging forward into Paisley folklore, where they will now linger forever beside the last lot of Hampden heroes from 1987.

It’s taken longer than they would have liked but their domestic cup collection was completed at last when Conor Newton fired them into a 3-1 lead.

Even though Stevenson caused some panic when he bagged a double of his own late on, sparking some chaotic closing moments, ultimately there would be no denying St Mirren.

At long last, this trophy is theirs and the way they hugged it amidst a blizzard of black and white confetti suggested they will be in no rush to give it back.

It was the most joyous of endings to a day these players and their long suffering fans will never forget.

Quietly, something had been building under Glasgow’s grey, threatening skies since mid-morning. Both sets of supporters brought an unmistakable nervous tension with them as they filed into Hampden. It was as if many of them had come more in genuine terror than in expectation.

They were not charged up with belief in their team but high on anxiety at the prospect of being forced to witness them blowing it.

It made for a stomach-churning environment but one which sharpened the senses nonetheless. In fact, it felt just like cup final day should. And perhaps it should have come as no surprise that Hearts – a club that has become so used to operating with that sickly feeling in the pit of its stomach – should be the first to make themselves at home.

Gary Locke’s youngsters opened up as if they owned the place which was indeed ironic given that soon they may not have a roof over their heads at all thanks to their heartless Lithuanian landlord.

If truth be told it was galling to think of Vladimir Romanov lording it up at Hampden given the chaotic state he has made of the club. The fact the Hearts players had made it here – despite him – to a second-successive cup final makes their own contributions all the more heroic.

And that’s exactly the way they opened up. Like heroes in the making.

All over the park Locke had players who were switched on and determined to seize the moment.

It took them only nine minutes to hit the front when Stevenson made the most of some St Mirren defending which was straight from the big book of flying by the seat of your pants. First David van Zanten hurled himself into a bone shuddering tackle on John Sutton which the big striker was fairly fortunate to walk away from.

Then skipper Jim Goodwin slid into another high-testosterone tackle on Michael Ngoo but he only succeeded in knocking it into Stevenson’s stride.

The midfield man still had work to do but there was a serenity about him as he sized up the opportunity, twisting one way then the other to open up an angle, which gave him the look of a certain scorer even before he squeezed off the shot.

It flicked up off Paul Dummet’s heel as it looped into the bottom corner and right then the Paisley end might have thought about evacuating and heading for home.

Their team – Gary Teale aside – had not turned up. In fact, were it not for Teale’s composure and energy on the right flank, they might have been completely frazzled as it all looked just too much for some.

There would have been no way back at all had Sutton not smashed a header off the outside of Craig Samson’s post when he was superbly picked out by Jamie Walker’s superb, hanging cross.

And then, twice in the space of a couple of minutes, Ngoo came within a yard of a tap-in.

First when he stretched but failed to connect with a terrific deadball delivery from Kevin McHattie then when he did not anticipate Mehdi Taouil screwing a shot across the face of an open goal.

Had Ngoo been on the move a split second earlier then he would have walked it over the line but, instead, he stood back and admired Taouil’s twisting run and then found the chance had passed him by. It was passing St Mirren by too. Until Teale took Lennon’s youngsters by the hand and dragged them back into this final.

The veteran winger got motoring down the right on to a perfect pass from Paul McGowan, beating the offside trap as he raced through on Jamie MacDonald’s goal.

The selfless Teale then had the presence of mind to draw the keeper and roll the ball to his left to allow Goncalves to stroke home from 10 yards. And suddenly, all at once, St Mirren’s players began to settle.

It had taken 36 minutes but their cup final had finally begun.

And by the time they came out for the second half, all they required was 45 seconds of it to storm into a 2-1 lead.

It was Paul Dummit who set it up, the full-back galloping on to a John McGinn pass and firing a low cross into the feet of Thompson at the edge of the six-yard box.

The striker met it with a sweeping left-foot finish, brushing the ball high past MacDonald at the keeper’s near post and crashing it into the roof of his net.

Cue bedlam behind MacDonald’s goal, where the nightmare was becoming dreamy reality.

Now it was Hearts who were edgy and frayed and snatching at whatever few half chances they could create. Not that there were many of them.

And yet it still made for compelling, gripping stuff because of the tightness of the margins.

At least it did until 65 minutes when Newton conjured a picture book third goal to send St Mirren soaring clear. And this one perfectly showcased the difference between the two sides.

First, Newton showed tenacity to outmuscle Taouil in midfield and then the alertness and touch to work a lightning 1-2 with Goncalves which sliced through the centre of the Hearts defence.

Then a nerveless Newton lashed home a blistering low drive as if he was doing it for fun at shooting practice, when in fact he was writing history with the laces of his right boot.

Stevenson threw a late spanner in the works when, after a great surge from Ngoo, he screwed a shot across goal and in off the base of Samson’s left-hand post.

The same player rattled the woodwork again in the frantic closing moments but Saints withstood the late barrage and, in the end, they timed it just about perfectly.

Taken from the Daily Record