The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Saints have play-off history in the ranks
Play-off football is all new to St Johnstone – but plenty of their players have tasted the high-stakes, nerveshredding end-of-season contests with previous clubs.
Courier Sport looks back on their experiences down the years. From Michael O’Halloran’s Wembley penalty shoot-out that went all the way to the goalkeepers to Callum Booth’s trauma with Dundee United, here’s a selection of moments to remember and forget.
Zander Clark
In the month Saints were lifting the Scottish Cup eight years ago, Clark was trying to help loan club Queen of the South into the Premiership.
In the quarter-final, the Doonhamers beat Falkirk 2-1 at Palmerston but lost 3-1 in the return leg, with future Tommy Wright recruit Blair Alston scoring the winner moments from the end of extra-time.
Shaun Rooney
Saints’ cup final talisman Rooney was part of the Queen’s Park side trying in 2015 to get out of League Two that got past Arbroath but then lost out 2-1 on aggregate to Stenhousemuir.
Four years later, he and Jamie McCart were Inverness team-mates when the Highlanders were well beaten by Dundee United.
Liam Gordon
That 2015 Queen’s Park v Arbroath contest featured Gordon – on loan from Hearts – in maroon. The current Perth captain got a stage further with Peterhead a couple of years later, but they were thrashed 7-2 over the two-leg final by Forfar.
Jamie McCart
At least there will be someone in the Saints defence who knows what it’s like to emerge out of the play-offs victorious.
McCart was on loan from Celtic at Alloa in 2018 when they beat Dumbarton (after extra-time) to go up to the Championship.
Liam Craig
Craig’s two seasons away from McDiarmid Park with Hibs brought back-to-back play-off heartbreak.
The 2014 season’s climax was particularly brutal – and relevant to Saints’ current situation – given the Edinburgh club were the Premiership side when they lost on penalties to Hamilton Accies. The next year Rangers beat them 2-1 in the semi-final.
Ali Crawford
Crawford was a key man for Accies in 2014. He is Saints’ most successful play-off performer, having helped top-flight Hamilton beat Dundee United in 2017.
Even Crawford doesn’t have a 100% record, though. In 2019, he played for Doncaster Rovers who were beaten on penalties by Charlton Athletic. Callum Booth
If Crawford’s record is the best of the current Perth squad, Booth’s is the worst.
There was a 2010 play-off final defeat to Forfar on loan at Arbroath, then more misery as a Partick player in 2018 as the Premiership Jags lost to big underdogs Livingston.
The unwanted Booth hat-trick was completed with United the year after. His last kick of the ball in Tangerine was the final penalty saved by St Mirren keeper Vaclav Hladky. Michael O’Halloran
On a two-month loan from Bolton Wanderers, he was introduced during extra-time of Sheffield United’s Wembley clash against Huddersfield Town, with Championship football at stake for the two Yorkshire clubs.
O’Halloran made it 6-6 in sudden death of the penalty shoot-out, but when it was the turn of the two keepers to step up, United’s Steve Simonsen was the one who missed.