A Mayday call helped rescue Perth men from shocking slump
ST JOHNSTONE’S hangover from hell coincided with a drought of Saharan proportions for striker Stevie May. Following up the Double cup-winning campaign of 2020-21 was the mother of all tasks for Callum Davidson’s team.
And shorn of star player Ali McCann and captain Jason Kerr — both sold on transfer deadline day and neither replaced — it became impossible.
One month after those two were packed off to Preston and Wigan respectively, May scored his second goal of the new campaign. He’d wait nearly another seven months for his third, yet, when that breakthrough goal came, it was definitively the most important the team scored all season.
A two-legged relegation play-off with Inverness was poised at 2-2 after a wobbly first leg in the Highlands, and it was May who broke the tension in the return by ramming the ball home to force his team in front.
It was a cathartic moment not only for Saints, who ran out 4-0 winners on the night but also May, who went into the summer feeling a whole lot better about himself.
What happened in the interim was grim, the sort of malaise that defies reason and which no amount of hard work can fix.
The new season has seen a continuation of that collective resurgence.
After 13 Premiership games, May has scored in crucial away wins at Motherwell, Dundee United and Hibs. He’s already exceeded last season’s goal tally and is looking much more like his younger self.
‘On a personal level, everything seems to come a little easier,’ he says. ‘If it’s going well, most things that you try seem to work. You enjoy the games more, too.
‘When you are in that place at the bottom, it is so hard to get out of it. So much went on in the first half of the season to put us in that position that it was hard to find a way out.
‘But winning the play-off game gave us a chance to start all square this season. It helps to reset and we got a lot of new faces in the door, which lifted everyone.
‘People who know the league, Andy Considine, Jamie Murphy, Graham Carey, a lot of older heads in the building, which can only help around the place in the games, preparationwise leading up to games and having the right mindset.’
May also throws in Nicky Clark’s name, another experienced head whose talents not only complement his game but also afford May the luxury of being the junior partner up front.
A member of Saints’ first-ever Scottish Cup-winning team of 2014, May had the perfect foil then in the experienced Steven MacLean, who helped manoeuvre his younger colleague round the pitch almost by remote control.
Soon after that historic win at Parkhead, May was transferred south to Sheffield Wednesday for a near seven-figure fee but his career never really ignited in the way his early performances promised.
A serious knee injury sustained at his next club Preston didn’t help and, when he returned north to reunite with his old Saints gaffer Derek McInnes at Aberdeen, he seemed to have lost some of his old barnstorming vigour.
The issue of age has been front and centre in May’s mind this week as he celebrated his 30th birthday on Thursday but he insists that performance-wise he is back on an upward curve.
‘It feels like that birthday has been coming for a while,’ he reflects. ‘I do feel like one of the elder statesmen here especially as I have been at the club since I was so young, albeit with a spell away. ‘I still feel I am improving — experience can’t be underestimated. The game gets easier when you get older in terms of knowing where you need to be to receive the ball.’ Tipped by many for another struggle this term, Saints have done enough to suggest they can aim higher than the relegation area. Back-to-back wins over Hibs and Kilmarnock have lifted them away from the drop zone and they were seconds away from claiming a point against league leaders Celtic last month. Today it’s challengers Rangers who visit McDiarmid Park and May believes Saints’ momentum will see them carry the fight to their guests. Giovanni van Bronckhorst hopes to have defender Ben Davies back for the game after he missed the team’s final Champions League defeat to Ajax. That could see May thrown into a personal duel with an ex-Preston colleague. ‘Ben was in and out on loan when I was there but he was a good young player and has improved since then. ‘I don’t know if there is ever a good time to play the Old Firm, so we must get a gameplan together.’