Championship decider

From 1945 until St. Mirren moved to Greenhill Road in 2009, Love Street played host to four
Championship deciding matches. Unfortunately, Saints themselves weren’t in the running for the
honours, but at least the Scottish Football League spotlight was cast on Paisley for each of those
important matches.

One of these took place on 16th April 1960, when Hearts came to Paisley looking for the single point
that would put them out of reach of second-placed Kilmarnock in the title race. Meanwhile, St.
Mirren were safely in the lower half of the table but looking to achieve a double over their
Edinburgh rivals, having taken both points in a 2-0 win at Tynecastle in the previous December.

A highly entertaining and explosive match saw Saints take the lead through Bryceland in the 4 th
minute, only for Jim McFadzean to equalise for Hearts four minutes later. Tommy Gemmell’s 17 th
minute goal was controversially equalised on the half hour when Dave Walker had the ball kicked
out of his hands for Ian Crawford to eventually net after two blocked attempts. A minute before half
time, Saints’ outside left Jim Rodger was sent off for kicking out at George Thomson.

10 man St. Mirren dispelled any notion that they were going to defend and after 53 minutes scored
the goal of the match. Gerry Baker picked up a pass from Gemmell in midfield and ran at the Hearts
defence, Kirk and Milne converging on him. At the right moment, Baker swerved to outwit both
defenders and struck a wonderful shot past the outrushing Marshall. Despite Saints superiority, Alex
Young equalised with a scrambled goal in 67 minutes. Twelve minutes later, Tommy Gemmell’s
penalty made it 4-3 and the scoring was completed by Willie Bauld, who made it 4-4 in the 89 th
minute with Hearts 100th League goal of the season.

The match programme was a 12 page issue of black print on white paper, priced at 3d. The front
cover showed a picture of the main Love Street stand, with “Cairter’s Corner” to the left hand side of
the photo. The full match details were displayed above a larger box detailing the next home game
against Partick Thistle the following week. The match details were repeated on page 3, together
with Club Notes, which extended onto the following page. Page 5 was entitled “From the Manager’s
Desk” and gave Willie Reid’s impressions of the current events. In the issue against Hearts, he
bemoaned the “power play” methods of some Clubs, preferring players who could use the ball and
depend on their skill. He felt that the game was more entertaining when faced by opposing Clubs
who adopted the same approach. The centre pages of the programme gave the team lines,
surrounded by adverts. Page 8 listed the fixtures for 1959/60, without scores, and strangely only
starting from November. This was followed by a page devoted to “This Week’s Personality”, being
Bobby Flavell, then in his third season at the Club. The only other feature of note was the Half Time
Score Board on page 11. The remainder of the issue was taken up by adverts.

The programme was a fairly non-descript issue, and wouldn’t stand out from any other St. Mirren
issues from 1953 until 1965. However, given the importance of the game, especially to Hearts
collectors, it can now fetch prices in excess of £40 - £50.