I always knew that Saints would go up
Former Buddies’star Junior Mendes heaps praise on club
Former St Mirren star Junior Mendes has hailed the Buddies’ championship winning season – having predicted their promotion two years ago.
But with tongue firmly in cheek, the ex-Chelsea youth player reckons none of the current crop would have made his 2000 First Division winning team.
Pacey forward Mendes netted five times that season including a crucial late goal against Raith Rovers in Kirkcaldy.
And while heaping praise on the job achieved by nowdeparted gaffer Jack Ross, Mendes rates his Millennium Champions higher, not even sparing a space for star man Lewis Morgan.
“With a club like St Mirren, it was a false position the team was in back in 2016,” said Mendes. “At a club like St Mirren, the supporters keep on coming which is so important for the players and I felt all it would take was a few results for things to turn around.
“I was at the reunion night that December and said to the fans, ‘Keep the faith and let’s see what happens’.
“They play great football and have excellent attacking players – but we were better.
“The lad Morgan is a gem – no wonder Celtic have come in and signed him.
“But he would have had to take my position, so I wouldn’t have been having that.
“I’d have stepped my game up and made sure he was on the bench.”
Mendes features in a special article on former Saint s’ manager Tom Hendrie’s class of 2000, which is published in Nutmeg, a quarterly printed periodical on all things Scottish football.
The Buddies feature, penned by Saints supporter David Christie, also includes interviews with the manager and fans’ favourites Mark Yardley, Steven McGarry and Barry McLaughlin.
It covers all the quirks of the season and even reveals the culprit behind a hotel fire extinguisher incident.
For Mendes, now plying his trade as a sports scientist with Partick Thistle, St Mirren and the season “the bubble didnae burst” still holds a huge place in his heart.
He added: “For the first five months after I joined, I was so homesick that I’d get in the car straight after a match, drive the six hours down to London then head back up late on a Sunday.
“That season everything we hit went in – normally you get days like that, when luck is on your side, but for us that was happening every week.
“I loved my time at St Mirren and wouldn’t have had a career in football if it wasn’t for them.
“I was a young guy who made my senior debut there and learned my trade.”
The lad Morgan is a gem – no wonder Celtic signed him Junior Mendes