We’ll be biting our nails to the very end
A wise old owl of an English teacher once told me, with a twinkle in his eye, to avoid clichés like the plague. Clever that. See what he did? But in the war against relegation there is no time for subtlety. St Mirren then might be off the bottom but they sure ain’t back from the brink.
And – to sum up with that old classic – this is going to the wire.
I suspect we might still be biting our nails on May 6 at Easter Road.
In the week that local artist Mark Worst – now there’s an ill-fitting name for a highly-talented young man -– completed a stunning mural of the 1987 Scottish Cup winning team on a wall in Brown’s Lane, it struck me that the current team might yet embrace some kind of immortality just for being not nearly as bad as we first thought they were.
Mark’s work is astonishing, although why on earth he was persuaded to include a likeness of your old reporter on the opposite wall, alongside the genuine article when it comes to legends – Jackie Copland – is beyond me, your old reporter in question.
And think on this. If you’re thinking of toddling up the lane for a bit of spray painting yourself, then Mark has beaten you to it. He considers himself to be a graffiti artist. Get your own commissions.
The painting of the team – unveiled by Tony Fitzpatrick, Frank McGarvey and Campbell Money – is a real work of art, although the hair of Bobby Holmes, the physio who had a legendary Bobby Charlton comb over, does threaten to blow all the way to Causeyside Street. But I digress. As St Mirren continues to reach for the safety of the shore, I was struck by something Stevie Mallan said to this newspaper.
He praised to the heavens the job in midfield being done by another Stevie – this time McGinn – indicating that he was learning plenty from a player who has been over the course in England and who is an honest and talented tradesman. Of course he is. Mallan is such a talented lad that we all sometimes forget that he is still a Scotland under-21 player, albeit he just had that particular birthday.
Fans place a huge expectation level on his shoulders. You can sense the buzz of anticipation when he gets on the ball, the fever pitch of the chant when he spots it up for a free kick within shooting range ... which, for some supporters, need not be in the same postcode.
McGinn isn’t exactly care home material himself. He is still only 28, but in a footballer’s career, these are the glory years. St Mirren is ridiculously lucky to have him.
You can see him nursing Mallan, who is back to his old form –Saturday excepting when he looked like he had put his feet in the wrong boots. But even God has off days.
But it all underlines a point I have been screaming about for years, namely that under-age football is all right up to a point.
However, when you turn 16 and you embrace talent and serious ambitions, then you need to get into the lions’den.
Kids – and by that I mean those in their late teens – don’t learn much from each other. The pro-youth system in Scotland is a joke.
We need a return to good old-fashioned reserve-team football where budding young talent on the way up got to play with older blokes on the return journey, and learned their ways.
I care not what your trade is, you need to do an apprenticeship. Plumbers, joiners, electricians and builders do it. Well, the good ones do.
I started in this industry making cups of tea and running errands for then household names in the sportswriting business, but they taught me what I needed to know.
In the days of the reserve team, you played the reverse fixture, so players got the experience of performing in a stadium.
The system wasn’t broken but some wise guys decided to fix it anyway.
If the Great Escape happens – and this whole spring is churning my stomach watching this – then St Mirren will take stock.
And the game itself – the SFA and the SPFL – should join them in a period of reflection.
The writing is on the wall for their pro-youth set-up. If you don’t believe me, I can get Mark Worst to paint it for them ....
We need to return to the days when budding young talent got to play with older blokes and learned their ways