‘Gow on and return Saints strip please’
Items go walkies after Lindsey dressed fiddler for cup
A Saintee who pinned her colours to the mast or rather the local statue - ahead of Saturday’s glorious cup final win is upset that some spoilsport made off with her blue and white team strip.
Lindsey Reid, from Dunkeld, and her sister Morven Sayer spent days planning their show of support for St Johnstone FC in the Scottish Cup final.
Lindsey ordered a blow-up cup off Amazon, blue and white balloons and even had a special banner printed up for the big day.
She and Morven dressed up the bronze statue of historic fiddler Niel Gow of Inver so he was the picture of full-on Saints support.
The sisters wound a tartan plaid around him as a kilt and gave him a Saints scarf around his neck.
They topped the bronze memorial located alongside the main road between Dunkeld and Birnam with a blue and white jester’s hat.
But while the statue was still fully clothed at 10.30pm on Saturday night, some time after, unknown revellers went off with everything.
Having discovered on Sunday morning that Niel Gow had been stripped of his Saints gear, Lesley put a ‘polite notice’ on social media on Monday morning, appealing for the return of the treasured items.
“On Saturday, I decorated the Niel Gow statue in St Johnstone colours, for the big cup final day,” she said.
“Unfortunately, on returning to remove all items today, everything, even the banner, had disappeared.
“His kilt is actually part of a Highland dancing outfit, so I would really appreciate if whoever has any of these items, could they please return them to me.”
The whole family were rooting for a Saints victory.
Lesley’s husband Billy has been a season ticket holder since McDiarmid Park opened over 30 years ago.
Billy had a stroke four years ago and now needs to use a wheelchair. After his recovery he was delighted to be able to attend matches in Perth with Lesley using the disabled bays in the St Johnstone home ground stadium.
For the kilt that was part of the statue’s blue and white getup, Lesley raided her grown up daughter Ailsa’s (25) cupboard and used the plaid that was once part of an outfit from her Highland dancing days.
“Ailsa used to dance with Jean Swanston in Logierait and Jean taught me too, so Highland dancing has been part of our family for a very long time,” Lesley told the PA.
“So you can understand I’d really like to get the blue and white plaid skirt back.
“Perhaps someone who had a bit of, shall we say, clouded judgement late on Saturday night will be in a better frame of mind now and will be willing to put it back?
“My brother-in-law Dave Smith is the local policeman, so I have mentioned it to him, but I’m not angry so much as sad that someone thought it was okay to go away with all the items we had carefully prepared.
“When Morven and I dressed up the statue we knew there was a risk something would happen, but we trusted it would be just balloons or the scarf that went walkabout.
“We had so many people stopping to have a picture taken with Niel Gow in his Saints outfit on Saturday, it generated a lot of pleasure in the town.
“Friends tell me there were a lot of people out and about on Saturday night and we can only guess at what happened after the pubs closed.
“Anyway I hope if the kilt got discarded in a garden or something that it will find its way back to the Niel Gow statue in the coming days.”