Complacency is a curse we don’t need
So happy anniversary Dundee United.
Three decades after being stuffed by St Mirren in the Scottish Cup final, the Tannadice club continue to be super-glued to the Championship and will be forced to engage with Paisley’s finest on at least four occasions next season.
Their coupon-busting failure not to remove themselves from the division had their fans in tears and triggered a civil war between support and players as emotions erupted in the playoffs.
Hamilton survived and kicked the logic of natural order over the gazebo that doubles as a stand at New Douglas Park.
This is good for St Mirren because it means our players do not have to perform on that infernal plastic pitch which isn’t fit – or maybe it is, but I don’t care – to host carpet bowls.
The thing is it’s a joke that it’s allowed to accommodate top-league football.
Behind the scenes, the authorities would much have preferred United to have walked hand in hand with Hibs back into the big time. Of course they would.
For a start, if you remove Inverness and Hamilton and replace them with Hibs and United, then you are around 20,000 fans a week better off in your league.
But Hamilton – stubborn, kicking and screaming Hamilton – continue to ruin the grand plan.
And you’ve got to admire their gumption as much as you loathe their pitch.
Accies couldn’t round up a big support with the help of an army of cowboys and their higgledypiggledy stadium looks like a Lego construction in progress.
But you have to applaud their players and their single-minded determination to hold on to their big league status.
They have a crap pitch and stadium to match its splendour. The town seems next door to apathetic about their annual miracle of survival.
And yet they march stoutly on, defying the odds and the logic.
St Mirren have a better ground, better training facilities – which isn’t hard given theirs is non existent – and a bigger support .
But they didn’t have that terrierlike determination to cling on to the prize of Premiership existence.
Good luck to Hamilton, but their triumph means that the Championship will be just a tad more glamorous because of the continuing presence of Dundee United. Arabs caught in the quicksand.
They will look around and fancy their chances, which in fairness is exactly what I suspect many St Mirren fans are currently doing.
But if this town is to host topleague football alongside city of culture status, then our team needs a little of Hamilton’s single mindedness and less of Dundee United’s belief in the divine right of a natural order.
Don’t swan off on your holidays dreaming of an autumn, winter and spring to come when all Saints have to do is turn up.
Complacency is a curse and it will kick you where it hurts most.
You and I might not be beach-ready – and actually I’m about as prepared as stranded whale – but St Mirren players, as they take the summer sun, had better get their focus adjusted.
Dundee United’s fans and owners looked like victims of a haunting as the full-time whistle blew at Douglas Park on Sunday.
It’s a movie Paisley could do without viewing a year down the line.
If this town is to host top league football, then our team needs a little of Hamilton’s single mindedness