Saints kids have to use Livi loss as fuel to earn a shot at replicating class of 1987
Less than five months after their last semi- final appearance, St Mirren are headed for Hampden Park this weekend looking to cement themselves a place in a cup final.
The Buddies have already enjoyed a superb season on the pitch.
Narrowly missing out on the top six while reaching the last four of both cup competitions would be considered a success in a normal campaign, let alone one set to the backdrop of a global pandemic.
Historic wins over Celtic in the league and Rangers in the League Cup have also raised spirits and expectations in Paisley.
But, while this has been a significant season for St Mirren, it could yet become a sensational one.
To lift the Scottish Cup for the first time in more than 30 years would elevate this team into legendary status.
And, if there’s one similarity that the current crop can make with the class of ‘87, it’s that there’s plenty of young guns ready to make their mark on a big stage.
St Mirren’s Scottish Cup winners against a much- fancied Dundee United side featured five players under the age of 20.
Ian Cameron, Ian Ferguson, Brian Hamilton, Paul Lambert and David Winnie were all in their teens when they stepped out onto the Hampden pitch and looked to become legends. Jim Goodwin’s current crop have plenty of youthful exuberance about them.
Ethan Erhahon is just 19, despite already having played more than 50 games in the stripes.
It’s the talented midfielder’s birthday on Sunday. What better way to celebrate than with a winning goal?
Winger Jay Henderson, also 19, has flown onto the scene recently, impressing in wins over Ross County and Kilmarnock.
Dylan Reid made history for the Buddies recently by becoming the youngest ever player to feature in the Premiership at just 16. Goodwin has extremely high hopes for the kid. Could he use this weekend’s match to announce himself to a wider audience?
Fellow Saints graduates Cammy MacPherson and Kyle McAllister are 22, while Irish duo Conor McCarthy and Jake Doyle-Hayes are 23 and 22 respectively.
In our exclusive interview with Paul Lambert, which will feature in tomorrow’s Express, the former Saints star talks about how fearless the kids were during their famous win in 1987.
As a 17-year-old, he insists he didn’t understand the magnitude of the competition and how much a win would mean to the entire town of Paisley.
Hopefully, the current crop of youngsters, steered by the experienced heads of Joe Shaughnessy, Richard Tait and Marcus Fraser, can utilise some of that fearlessness when they take to the Hampden turf on Sunday.
The biggest factor in their favour is that, for many of the club’s youngsters, the gutting first trip to the national stadium to compete in a semi-final is already out of the way.
While it clearly wasn’t the result they were after back in January, the likes of Erhahon, McCarthy and MacPherson will all have learned a huge amount from that first taste of the pressure and expectation of the business end of a cup competition.
The biggest negative heading into this weekend’s clash is that the current St Johnstone squad have the added experience of lifting a major trophy already this season.
That kind of experience is invaluable, but, as Jimmy Bone explained to the PDE on today’s back page, the Buddies were underdogs heading into their clash with Jim McLean’s superb Dundee United side.
Bone revealed that then manager Alex Smith was one of the best in the business at getting young players to believe in themselves and play above themselves when it mattered most.
If Goodwin can manage to have the same effect on his youngsters this Sunday, and if the gaffer sticks to his word about being more attacking-minded on his return to Hampden, St Mirren have every chance of giving themselves a shot at becoming a historic new class of 2021 come the end of the month.