In the shadow of Love Street
Fan-owned St Mirren are setting examples in the face of adversity
The prospect of October hung over me like a heavy cloud. Weeks before turning forty, I would leave my job without a safety net of any description. It's happened before. This time, on paper at least, it was my own decision.
Circumstances dictated that it wasn't much of one. I carry a lot of anger about that but by September I was superseded not by the sort of fear that looks on a Sunday before a tough week at work, but by the kind that comes with a better than evens chance of losing your house.
I'm not built for a mid-life crisis. I pretend it's because I'm truly happy when work isn't a factor – and I am – but that's not it. It’s really because I haven't grown up enough for the label to apply to me in any meaningful sense other than age.
Yet there I was, thirty-nine and calling unemployment freelancing for the second time in five years, looking for a distraction and for some time alone before the consequences of 2024 took root.
It was time to hit the road.
Football shaped my itinerary. For the last few seasons I've rekindled my relationship with the game in Scotland but I'd never been to a match at any level north of Hadrian’s Wall.
Celtic and Rangers don't hold a great deal of appeal in terms of visiting in person; watching those two on the television is just fine for me. I'm not a groundhopper but I do like to stray from the most popular paths.
That was Celtic Park and Ibrox out, then, but their location was nearly perfect. My trip would be tied in with a few days in Rothesay so relative proximity to the west coast was essential.
The fixture list for the top two divisions gave me some options and the ferry timetable narrowed them down. Greenock Morton on the Tuesday was a possibility but it was a night game, so being close to the ferry terminal wasn't much use. I'd be better off working my way back home and taking in the football en route.
Wednesday. A full schedule of fixtures in the Premiership. Celtic at home is off the table. Rangers are away anyway. Aberdeen, Dundee United, Heart of Midlothian and Ross Country are anything but pit stops on the way back to Warwickshire.
Paisley, on the other hand, is more than manageable. Truth be told, St Mirren were one of a very small number of clubs I had in the back of my mind when planning to travel north.
There are a handful of Scottish teams I'd like to watch in their own grounds. The Buddies were one of them. Happy memories of watching their manager, Stephen Robinson, orchestrating the midfield for AFC Bournemouth were the icing on the cake.
Their Wednesday night Premiership fixture against St Johnstone was the obvious choice. My fancy tickled. My itches scratched. My ticket booked.
I spent five days taking the long way round to Paisley, stopping first in Carlisle to watch Carlisle United’s EFL League Two match against Cheltenham Town and then for three days in Rothesay. The principal town on the Isle of Bute, Rothesay was home to a couple of generations of my close family and remains so for some of the extended version.
As the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry disgorged my car onto the island, St Mirren couldn't have been further from my mind.
Bute feels like a world apart, more memories and family history than bricks and mortar. The solid structures of Rothesay aren't what they used to be but the sense of home – which, for me, it never was – washes over me every time I roll off the boat.
Bute isn’t at its best in October. I arrived under a swirling storm and visited the place where the Riddell lineage now rests. The sun poked through sporadically on the second day but when it disappeared behind the clouds it took any warmth with it.
Something wasn’t quite right. Bute has always been able to drag me out of my head, evoking just enough of my childhood to bring me peace. It’s a different place now but there’s no fooling the sense of smell.
This time, as I pootled around the bays and beaches of the island, I couldn’t catch that seaside smell in my nostrils. Maybe it never really existed. Memory is an unreliable thing.
Then, stepping out of my car at the edge of Kames Bay, there it was. Saltwater and seaweed. I sat for a while, interrupted only when two other cars pulled up behind mine and the muffled voices of the occupants floated over my bench and into the Kyles.
I scarpered, choosing to believe they weren’t there for “outdoor sports” but not totally confident in my assumption. I’d cleaned my car before heading north so I figured it wasn’t worth the risk.
Wednesday came around quickly. After a drive along the stunning shore road past Skelmorlie to the coastal resort of Largs, where a top-notch chippy and the renowned ice cream served up at Nardini’s were the highlights of the briefest of visits, I set sail at last for Paisley.
St Mirren have been weathering a storm of their own this season. Relatively settled in the middle of the table in footballing terms, a series of off-pitch distractions have given Robinson more to chew on than he’d ever have bitten off by choice.
Kevin van Veen, the former Motherwell striker on loan with the Buddies from Groningen, sat out the St Johnstone match with a reported injury but was in court the following day on a domestic abuse charge. Jaden Brown, also absent on the night, admitted driving offences in court on the very same day as Van Veen’s hearing.
Shaun Rooney – formerly of St Johnstone – signed for St Mirren in the summer from Fleetwood Town and played just six league games before an incident in Glasgow resulted in an assault charge involving an 18-year-old woman and a breach of the peace charge relating to an 18-year-old man and being treated as a hate crime by authorities. Rooney was suspended and later left the Paisley club.
After my visit, the stadium sustained flood damage that took out phone lines and wi-fi, closing the stadium and ticket office. When it rains for St Mirren, it pours.
That’s not the usual to-do list for a manager and it’s testament to Robinson’s ability to navigate those waters that the match I attended was St Mirren’s first home fixture of his new contract extension.
The Buddies lost their previous game by a single goal against Rangers at Ibrox. It was the fourth defeat in four matches and leapfrogging St Johnstone was the sole order of business. I heard someone say it was the only midweek game in Paisley this season. That can’t be true, but I want it to be so I haven’t checked.
On this particular night, the SMiSA Stadium poked out into Paisley’s industrial twilight. It’s not a beacon, exactly, but it certainly brightens things up. Its name was changed in 2020 to thank SMiSA – the St Mirren Independent Supporters’ Association – for their support and financial backing.
The following year, SMiSA bought the necessary shares to become St Mirren’s majority owner. Another quarter of the club is held by Kibble, a child and youth care charity and social enterprise that uses the club to provide training and employment opportunities at the stadium and Ralston, the training ground. This is a football club unlike any other.
Walking along the back of the main stand on Greenhill Road, I noticed Toyosi Olusanya ambling along next to me without a care in the world.
Now St Mirren’s star player and chief goal threat, Olusanya worked his way up the English non-league system before a jump to the Championship. He moved to Paisley from Middlesbrough in 2022. He’s the player I was most excited to see in action.
The area was otherwise patrolled by small blotches of teenage boys exhibiting their boredom as they waited for the gates to open. It started to feel a lot busier with an hour to go before kick-off.
The stadium is modern, built for its specific purpose and absolutely no more. Yet it’s not without character and certainly not devoid of charm. It’s amazing what a new stadium can be when the decision to not construct a bowl is taken right at the start.
My seat for the evening was five rows back from the touchline, just along from the away dugout. St Johnstone’s new manager, Simo Valakari, stalked the technical area decked out from head to toe in blue.
Between us was the VAR screen. I’d never been closer to the review action and there was mercifully little at pitchside despite referee Steven McLean being subjected to more than one interminable VAR check in an eventful clash between one communion of Saints and another.
Across the field, the North Bank kicked into gear before kick-off. The singing section is neither to the north or on a bank, and isn’t appreciated by everybody at the SMiSA Stadium. The ultras within have occasionally strayed towards the performative extremes so beloved of the crews that inspired them.
The evidence of my eyes and ears revealed nothing more than a raucous bunch getting behind their team for the better part of two solid hours with the help of drums and a pre-match Beetlejuice flag that masked their entire block and announced that it was, indeed, showtime.
The first half was almost sufficiently packed with big moments to distract me from the fact that the man directly behind me stank – stank! – of cheeky vimto. A ballboy slipped over on the far side. McLean allowed a few one-on-one battles to get a might tasty.
St Johnstone had two goals disallowed but took the lead, to Robinson’s very evident frustration, and the Buddies laboured their way back into the game. Their equalising goal was a glorious curling shot from Scott Tanser and I had the best view in Paisley.
St Mirren’s second goal, scored by captain Mark O’Hara, arrived with a sense of inevitability twelve minutes into the second half. The Buddies were fabulous after the break and battered Valakari’s defence until it buckled repeatedly in the Renfrewshire rain.
The home team had a goal disallowed and had to wait until stoppage time to tie up the points. Substitute Jonah Ayunga lifted the ball into the net.
Ayunga was a popular scorer. He missed almost a year of football after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in January 2023 and has been fighting himself back to fitness and form since his return to action.
Alex Gogić survived a late VAR check for a possible red card – a little lucky, perhaps, but it would have been a touch fussy for my taste – and the Buddies celebrated a third Premiership win of the season.
St Mirren dominated the second half. Blackpool-born Tanser was a persistent threat not only on the left but from set pieces. Greg Kiltie was playing his 99th league match for the Buddies and he ran, and he ran, and he ran. He was phenomenal.
"Greg Kiltie epitomised St Mirren tonight. We’ve missed him and his footballing intelligence. I’m singling him out but there were a lot of positive performances,” said Robinson to BBC Sport after the game.
"We’re playing less around at the back and playing exciting, penetrating football. People running about until they can’t run anymore. It is basic but we play a lot of good football around that. We got away from that but we won’t get away from that again.
"It’s easy for the crowd to get on your back but they didn’t because they could see the effort and energy from the players."
O’Hara spoke of trust and team spirit, both of which were palpable in St Mirren’s performance on the night. They left Paisley happy and satisfied on a wet Wednesday night. So did I.
There’s a lot to like about St Mirren. With the Old Firm monopolising fitba headlines south of the border, punctuated only by the kind of miraculous run Aberdeen have been able to put together under Jimmy Thelin this season, the simple truth is most of the Scottish Premiership flies under the English radar almost all the time.
St Mirren’s is a story worth knowing. Their mantra – fan-owned, not fan-run – would be a useful guiding principle for the fan ownership movement everywhere. The board’s singular response to their players’ criminal justice involvement off the pitch is to be applauded, as is Robinson’s relative stoicism in losing them.
The Buddies played at home again three days after my visit and drew with Ross County. It was a much less entertaining game but a clean sheet was welcome and it meant another point towards the target: be above the dotted line after 33 games and then see what happens.
A night in the shadow of Love Street was a great way to end an emotionally draining solo road trip. I needed goals. I needed to see football in its best light. Under the leaden skies of Paisley on Devil’s Night, the Saints delivered.
Fantastic piece. Hope you’re doing ok mate, see you soon!
What a lovely bit of writing. 👏👏👏