Hinchy looks back at

It’s a moment Craig Hinchcliffe will never forget. A sliding doors scenario that basically brought an end to his St Mirren career. He looks back now and concedes what will be will be. But for the then experienced goalkeeper, a devastating knee injury brought an end to his hopes and dreams of plying his trade in the top flight. It’s August 27, 2006 and a Saints side eventually destined for promotion are preparing to face off against relegation fodder Brechin City. The final scoreline, 1-0 thanks to Stewart Kean’s 39th minute penalty, tells the story of three points, But, for Hinchy, a routine pre-match warmup was the beginning of the end. “I had been struggling with a knee problem for much of the season,” he told Express Sport. “In hindsight, I should have probably dealt with it a lot better. “As a club, we had been dealing with it, injections and things like that, because we were playing well. I had been through some of the tough times and obviously I didn’t want to miss any of it. “But I can still remember it to this day. I was warming up for a game at Love Street. We were just doing our usual preparations and the knee just went from beneath me. I knew there and then that was me done. “I tried to get back up and it just wasn’t there and I went back down. The pain was excrutiating, I was in big trouble.” An injury to his ulterior tendon would rule him out for the majority of the title-winning season, though he would return to sit on the bench for a number of weeks before Englishman Tony Bullock was drafted in as back-up to young pretender Chris Smith.

He would warm the bench for the triumph over Hamilton Accies in the Challenge Cup final, where goals from Simon Lappin and John Sutton brought the first piece of silverware back to Paisley.

But all the while, as his teammates burst a gut on the field, the stopper has hoping and praying that he wouldn’t have to pull the gloves back on.

He added: “There was a period before Tony came in, that I was back on the bench ... but I wasn’t right, I wasn’t ready to play again.

“I would sit there hoping that nothing happened, that I wouldn’t be needed. I knew I wasn’t right.

“It was soul destroying. Chris Smith came in and did very well and then Gus brought in Tony Bullock too. It was always going to be a struggle to get back into the side after that and it was difficult to watch at times, but once you realise that there is nothing you can do then you focus on supporting the side.”

Smith and Bullock would continue to compete for the starting jersey, and all the while Hinchcliffe was focusing on getting himself back up to speed.

A loan spell at Queen of the South the following season would see him get the first-team football that he craved, but missing out on the opportunity to pit his wits against the country’s best players was something that he struggled to come to terms with.

Having plyed his trade as a part-timer with the likes of Elgin City and Arbroath, he continued to balance work and football while on the Saints books.

By the time he arrived at Love Street, he was in charge of the pipe fitting company he worked for, making it easier to focus on in between the sticks.

So with the Saints’ SPL season rumbling on in the background, while he was at Palmerston, Hinchcliffe admits missing out completely was hard to take.