The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Win over Diamonds still shines bright
McDiarmid Park triumph in showdown with Airdrie regarded as the ‘best ever’
“It was the three of us and Harry Curran bombing forward. He was the ultimate box-to-box midfielder. We were involved in a lot of high-scoring games.
“It was new that season. We’d been 4-4-2 up until that point. Moorie was probably the final piece in the jigsaw. The formation took teams by surprise. Nine times out of 10 teams were forced to go long because we pressed defences high up the pitch. We hounded teams. Everybody squeezed up.
“I always remember that after we scored a goal Alex’s assistant, Bert Paton, would be screaming ‘get the ball back’ when they were taking their centre.” To March 31.
By this stage Jimmy Bone’s Airdrie – the first team to take points off Saints and the first team to win at McDiarmid – had emerged as the biggest danger in a time when only the champions went up. The best part of £200,000 had been spent on taking Owen Coyle to Broomfield in the February. Ironically, nobody knew Coyle better than Totten and choosing not to sign him was starting to look like a costly decision.
Coyle to St Johnstone was a move that was fated not to happen – as a player, that is. The man who would end up sitting in the same home McDiarmid dug-out as Totten when he replaced John Connolly as manager, setting the club on its path to the current golden age, said: “Alex is an outstanding man and his football knowledge is great.
“He loved his wingers and from a striker’s point of view that was perfect because you knew you’d get good service. So it proved. I scored a barrowload for him at Dumbarton.”
Coyle continued: “I actually did a preseason with St Johnstone to keep myself fit when Tommy was there and I was out of contract but a move didn’t happen. Then, at the other end of my career, I came close to signing for Billy Stark
“What I do remember from back then is Alex was building a really good team at the time. They had a bit of everything. Players wanted to play for him and he knew the game.
“A big part of management is how you treat players. You need to create an environment that they want to work in. Alex did that. You knew he had trust in you.”
Coyle’s goals had taken Airdrie above Saints and, with two points for a win, they had a one-point lead and a game in hand. Also, in the days of newspaper cuttings being stuck on dressing room walls, a tabloid story about a wreath sent to Bone by a Perth supporters’ club in the week of the match would no doubt have had pins pressed into its corners.
What you would have expected to be a 50-50 encounter, albeit with one side in greater need of a victory than the other, turned into anything but.
In the words of Grant and Totten, Saints “battered” Bone’s men. Three times they struck the woodwork – Maskrey twice and Grant once – and when the goal-frame transported from Muirton to McDiarmid didn’t thwart them, goalkeeper John Martin, having the game of his life, barred the way.
For a modern day equivalent, think the Betfred Cup final with Martin playing the role of Fraser Forster. And for Christopher Jullien delivering the against-the-run-of-play sucker punch, read Stevie Gray.
Following usual football logic, Gray’s curling shot into the top corner with just over 20 minutes to go should have had Airdrie believing this was their day and Saints players and fans thinking Bruce McDiarmid had forgotten to mention the land gifted to the club may have been free but it came with a witch’s curse.
“One of the things that has stuck in my mind was when Stevie Gray scored, I looked down and saw Don McVicar sink to his knees,” said Beverley. “I can still picture him doing it now. He was putting his head in his hands thinking: ‘What do we have to do to win this’. The rest of us were thinking the same. It was just incredible that they were still able to turn it around.”
A few minutes later Saints had their best chance yet to score. Maskrey was tripped by a weary Brian McKeown at the edge of the box. It was deemed just inside it according to the referee and don’t try suggesting any revisionist history to Totten that it could have been just outside.
“Oh, it was a stonewall penalty!” To take as pressurised a spot-kick as there has ever been at McDiarmid, with only the Europa shoot-outs of recent years coming close, Mark Treanor stepped up, sending Martin the wrong way. 1-1.
If there had been doubts in the Airdrie players’ minds about whether to stick or twist before the game, or indeed after they had taken the lead, there weren’t any now. The chances of them scoring a winner were as miniscule as the numbers at the base of the diamonds on their backs. Clinging on at this point was their only hope.
When a free-kick was awarded wide right on 86 minutes, Grant, having softened up his man-marker of the day, Derek Grant, got a run on the centreback and powered his header from Treanor’s cross into the net.
He said: “I grew up in Livingston playing juvenile football and I played with Derek. We travelled together to Cowdenbeath when we both played there. He signed for Airdrie and we hadn’t seen each other for a while.
“We spoke before the game and he was saying: ‘I hate playing against you. You’re all elbows and I don’t know when to go tight and when to stand off’.
“It was an accident but before that free-kick I’d caught him above the eye with an elbow. The blood was running into his eye. He was meant to pick me up at the set-piece, I’ve got away from him and it was a free header.
“At the end of the game I told him I didn’t mean the elbow and he said: ‘Do you fancy going for a pint?’
“So we walked into the 208 pub near the ground and of course the place was absolutely bouncing. There was only one of us who stayed!”
With seconds left, Grant set one substitute, Ian Heddle, clear down the left and the other second-half replacement, Kenny Ward, put the result beyond doubt from the cut-back.
Ever the consummate professional, Totten had watched the match again before we met at the Falkirk Stadium. Not that he needed to. The sights and sounds of that early spring afternoon are as vivid in his mind now as they were when his head hit the pillow hours after the final whistle blew.
He said: “It was only March but it was a hot, sunny afternoon and it was like Italy after the game with the sound of
“What a game that was. The best game ever. You can talk about the day we got promotion or the cup semi-finals but that afternoon was electric. ALEX TOTTEN
the horns in the car park. It was a game we had to win. It was as simple as that. They were above us with a game in hand and we couldn’t let a bigger gap develop.
“And what a game it was. The best game ever. You can talk about the day we got promotion or the cup semi-finals but that afternoon was electric.
“The players were fantastic. To be 1-0 behind was a travesty but if there was one word which summed that team up it was ‘determination’. They didn’t know when they were beaten. But they wouldn’t have done it without the fans, who played their part as well. They were magnificent. They stayed with us when we went 1-0 down and plenty of other teams’ supporters wouldn’t have.”
It could also be described as the club’s ultimate sliding-doors game. Grant certainly thinks it was.
“Where would we have been if we didn’t win it and then win the league?” he reflected.
“Would we still be a part-time club in the lower leagues? You just don’t know. The club has never been part-time since.
“That season was the whole catalyst for the good years the club has enjoyed since. It was a massive turning point for St Johnstone. There have been a couple of relegations but, on the whole, things got better and better.”
Brown, who joked (I think) that his biggest regret was transforming Saints from a part-time club into a full-time one, sprinkled a bit of cold water on the now or never theory, pointing to the fact that Airdrie got promoted the year after. He couldn’t argue with the unique quality of the occasion, and of the season, mind you.
“A lot of things had come together,” he said. “That was a very, very important game – probably the most important one after I came in in ’86. There is a lot of pride, looking back.
“Compare the crowd we got that day to the crowd the next time we played Airdrie in the Premier League a couple of seasons later – there was something like a 7,000 gap. It shows the importance of having something on the line.”
Stand-alone football thrillers have their place but to get into club folklore they need consequence. This one was aided by the fact that an Airdrie side so strong going into the top-of-the-table match, winning five in a row, couldn’t secure a victory in any of their next five after it. The spectacular capitulation reinforced the power of the blow Saints had landed.
Coyle made no attempt to downplay the imbalance of the match itself or the lasting significance of the result on the title race. He said: “Sometimes you have to hold your hands up if a team is better than you. No arguments. On that day St Johnstone were better than us.
“When I joined as manager, I didn’t
mind people mentioning the game to me. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in some huge matches in my career. Sometimes you have to accept that a really good team were better than you.”
Spend an hour with Totten and you won’t be left in any doubt that the Airdrie afterglow has not evaporated, and neither has his affection for St Johnstone and the players he led that season.
A cup of tea barely touches his lips as one anecdote follows another. The folder of photos comes out, as does the scarf he was given by fans which he religiously wore on the touchline whatever the weather – a knitted contract that symbolised the era. That the 2020 club calendar has him on the front of it alongside other Perth managerial titans might not seem like a big deal, but it fills Totten with pride.
“I had six senior teams as manager and I took Falkirk to the cup final but the most enjoyable time was at St Johnstone,” he said. “I’ll always say that.
“We had a special relationship. Every time I go back to Perth I’m made to feel really welcome. Airdrie is the one game that always comes up. It’s the one the fans – certainly the older ones – want to talk about.
“It was THE special game. If I could go back to one match as manager, that would be it. Without a doubt it was the most enjoyable.
“I’ve still got a great feeling for St Johnstone. That won’t go away. I don’t get a chance to go back very much because I never miss a game with Falkirk.”
One game he couldn’t miss was Saints’ 2014 Scottish Cup final win against Dundee United. Totten was manager for the greatest game at McDiarmid Park and fan for the greatest game away from it.
“It was a brilliant afternoon,” he said. “I took the team to three semi-finals – two Scottish Cups and one League Cup - and just couldn’t make the next step.
“One of those semis was against Dundee United when there was a blatant penalty we didn’t get. Stevie Maskrey had a shot and Dave Bowman put it over the bar with his elbow.
“I’ll always remember knocking on their dressing room door after the game to wish them all the best in the final. Jim McLean was shouting at his players. He stopped to say ‘thanks, Alex’ and then started roaring and shouting again!
“We were unlucky but it was great to see Saints beat Dundee United in the final. I was so pleased for the fans and the club. They had the open top bus parade which brought back the memories of our one in 1990.”
Tommy Wright’s teams have surpassed most of the achievements of the ones who went before them. Given even they haven’t been able to claim the greatest game at McDiarmid Park accolade from Totten’s part-timers, there’s a strong chance no St Johnstone side ever will.