The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
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CALLUM DAVIDSON reckons he deserves a golden tribute similar to the one his home town awarded to another local Dunblane hero recently.
Olympic tennis champ Andy Murray has had a post box painted gold in his honour but Davidson, who returned to Scotland to play for St Johnstone after a successful spell in England, has modestly set his sights a lot lower.
He joked: “Maybe they will paint a pooper scooper box gold in my honour! That would be nice when I am out walking the dog!
“But seriously, it is great for the town to have one of these gold pillar boxes. It was an unbelievable achievement for Andy.”
Former Scotland international Davidson is hoping to notch up a significant achievement of his own with Saints tomorrow when they travel to face a Motherwell side who lost 3-0 in Greece on Wednesday night in their Champions League qualifier.
Davidson said: “I hope Motherwell are tired after their trip to play Panathinaikos in midweek. They have had a tough couple of weeks with the Champions League qualifiers. But we also want to bounce back from the defeat to Hearts.
“By all accounts, they performed well against the Greeks and remember they were the third best team in Scotland last year.
“It can be hard recovering from the midweek games when you aren’t used to the travelling. Wednesday to Saturday isn’t too bad but hopefully they will be that little bit jaded.
“They have good individual players, who can do things on the ball and they have pace out wide in the team. That is where their strength lies. So it is definitely going to be a tough one for us.
“Stuart McCall has done really well with them and probably hasn’t got the credit he deserves for last season’s achievements.
“There was a lot of talk about Dundee United last season and Hearts won the cup. But Motherwell were the best of the rest if you like, by quite a big margin, and probably didn’t get the credit they deserved.”
Saints will be without the suspended Gregory Tade for the trip to Fir Park.
However, Davidson has backed another new arrival at the club Rowan Vine to step into Tade’s shoes and make an impact.
He said: “I played against Rowan a few times when he was at QPR. He is a good player and will be an excellent signing for us.
“He looks hungry from what I have seen of him and that is a big thing for players coming up to Scotland from down south.
“Rowan has played at a high level and he wants to do well. He wants to kick start his career again and hopefully we can get the benefit from that.
“One of the things Derek McInnes made sure when he sounded me out about coming here was that I still wanted to succeed. You need to have that desire to carry on.
“There is a good market down there with squads getting bigger in the Championship. There are players surplus to requirement.”
Meanwhile, Saints boss Steve Lomas is expecting a tough game at Fir Park.
He said: “Motherwell play at a high tempo and we will have to match that. They have good players with pace in their team and that’s why they did so well last season. When you have that quality in your team, you do well and they certainly have that.
“But from our point of view, if we can get the second half performance we produced against Hearts for 90 minutes this weekend and when we do get chances, take them, then it will be a decent game.
“The attitude of my boys is never in doubt. They can have off days but I always get the same high the level of commitment week in, week out.”
St Johnstone’s appeal against the red card Gregory Tade received at Hearts last weekend was thrown out by the SFA disciplinary panel at Hampden yesterday. The striker has been handed a two match ban and will miss tomorrow’s game at Motherwell and next week’s fixture against Aberdeen.