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Craig Ritchie St Mirren skipper Stephen McGinn has hailed a dream year but now he wants to toast it with a trophy.
The central midfielder has been key to Saints’ remarkable turnaround over the past 12 months, which has seen them transfrom from perennial strugglers to looking like stick-ons to win the Championship.
And having returned to the Paisley club from Wycombe Wanderers last January, McGinn admits he has been blown away by the progress that the side has made over the course of his second spell with the Buddies.
McGinn said: “It has been an amazing 12 months. But it has been really strange too, because there hasn’t really been any time to enjoy it.
“As much as it was brilliant to stay up last year, all of a sudden you were looking ahead to achieving something this year.
“This time last year we had just been to Dumbarton and drawn 2-2 and still had a massive game at Somerset Park to come. It is the sort of stuff you couldn’t have made up, and if you were asked to dream about a scenario then it would have been this.
“It will be amazing to look back on it in a few years time if we can get over the line this year.
“But you respect that teams have got games in hand and we have still got to play everyone in the league.
“You don’t want to dip, and I’ve been in the game long enough to know that once you get in a rut it can be hard to get out of it.
“We just need to keep doing what we are doing and be as clinical as we are at the minute.”
St Mirren would remain in the Championship by the skin of their teeth last season as they guaranteed their league status with a last-day draw away to champions Hibernian.
But despite only staying in the league by the narrowest of margins, McGinn insists the side was always confident of mounting a promotion push this season.
He added: “I think when we played in the big games last year we realised we were close. There was only a goal between us and Dundee United in the games we played them.
“We realised we were not far off being as good as them, if not slightly better. We knew if we could keep the majority of the team then we would be hard to beat. Our form was also right up there with Hibs from this point last season.”
St Mirren face a break from action this weekend due to the Scottish Cup, but when they return to league duty next Saturday, away to Livingston, the Buddies will be looking to extend their unbeaten league run which stretches back to December 2 when they were beaten by Dumbarton.
McGinn said: “We had a really tough afternoon at home to Dumbarton at the start of December and ever since then we have just not looked back.
“We have really taken off and made it hard for the teams below us to keep up, so we are just delighted with the way everything is going at the minute.”