Stunner lights up stadium

Callum Booth feared his first wonder goal for St Johnstone would be scrapped due to floodlight failure at McDiarmid Park.

The left-sided full-back netted a peach with his right foot after only four minutes to give the Perth side a 1-0 lead against Morton at the interval.

But with the sun setting and the stadium’s lights not playing ball, referee Nick Walsh was minutes away from calling time on the Scottish Cup fourth round fixture.

Luckily, after a 20-minute delay to the start of the second half, the darkness was lifted which allowed Saints to run out comfortable 3-0 winners.

Booth said:“I was thinking that my goal wasn’t going to stand. I don’t score many so I was gutted.

“Everyone wanted the second half to be played. I don’t know what the problem was with the floodlights but luckily we got them back.

“We kept ourselves ticking over on the bikes in the gym while we waited on news. It was probably a half-hour wait in total – maybe that is our excuse for not starting the second half very well.”

Booth’s strike from 25 yards with his weaker foot was controlled and deadly accurate.

He added:“It’s broke at the edge of the box and come out at a perfect speed to hit first time. It was either me on my right or Murray (Davidson) on his left. I managed to get there first and tried to get it on target with the side foot.

“Lucky enough it went in. It was a decent goal and a good start to the game for us.”

Morton, to their credit, didn’t make life easy for Saints and did have a flurry of chances during the game.

“It was a good afternoon,”Booth continued. “It’s another clean sheet, we’re through in the cup and it was quite comfortable in the end.

“We made it quite hard for ourselves after getting an early goal.

“We could’ve kicked on but fair play to Morton, they made it tough. They had a couple of chances first half and we were a little bit slack in some of our play.

“But it’s good to get back into the swing of things and get a good result going into a busy period.”