Whilst Celtic’s home record overall had been impressive, away games were a different matter entirely. St Johnstone’s Muirton Park had proved one of the trickier away venues over the years, with Celts suffering several defeats and earning a few hard-fought victories, perhaps most memorably that dark day in January 1976, when a last-gasp, diving header from Johannes “Shuggy” Edvaldsson snatched a 4-3 victory for Sean Fallon’s Celtic, who had come from behind three times to stay in the match with the ultimately-relegated Saints, in the first-ever season of the Premier League.
That was a happy journey home on the Cairn CSC minibus, which bore the moniker “Shanks’ Pony”, a play on the owner/ driver’s name. Bill Shanks drove us all over the country for years and had the happy knack of parking closer to the stadium than anyone else. In those days, trips to Perth invariably involved a visit for the “dads with sons” to a city-centre tearoom, whilst the single men hit the pub. These were fantastic, formative Celtic years for me, which I look back on most fondly.
The Cairn was a close-knit bunch of supporters, good guys, some of whom I still see at Celtic Park, although most of the original members, such as my dad, John Mullen, Archie Grant and Frank Dolan, are sadly long since gone. I was really sorry to hear news yesterday of the sudden death of another of those lovely guys from those times, John Conway. God rest them all.
With the opening of a new Celtic Supporters Social Club in Springburn in the mid-’70s increasing the demand for membership of the buses leaving the area to follow the Bhoys each week, the Cairn finally relented to requests to extend to facilitate a full-size coach to games. At 18 years old, I was appointed club treasurer in the summer of 1979, as the new era was launched, following in my dad’s footsteps and mirroring his position in the Celtic Club, which he and others had fought so hard to establish.
St Johnstone had struggled since that relegation, three years earlier. Indeed, it would be 1983 before they would return to the top-flight. The extended Cairn did make the trip to Perth in August 1981, just a few days after Willie Garner Saturday, when the Hoops-mad defender made a nightmare debut in a home League Cup section-opener against the other Scottish Saints, St Mirren, scoring two own goals in a 3-1 defeat.
The Muirton match pitched Billy McNeill’s champions Celtic against second-tier St Johnstone, with all nostalgic thoughts of our long-awaited return to the old ground disappearing as a teenage Alastair McCoist notched the first of what would be many damaging goals against the Hoops. Celts would lose 2-0 on the night and would exit the competition at the section stage, despite four successive and emphatic wins in the remaining group games against the two Saints and Hibernian.
If that was bad then worse was to follow on my first visit to McDiarmid Park, in December 1990. Saints had sunk to the very depths of senior Scottish football after successive relegations in the mid-’80s, before fresh investment and a relocation to land donated by a local farmer, Bruce McDiarmid, revived their fortunes. Their new all-seater 10,000-capacity stadium, the first such constructed in the UK and opened in August 1989, was the catalyst for the modern-day Saints, the Perth club winning promotion to the Premier League in the first season at their new home.
Interesting team St Johnstone. They possibly share with Rangers the distinction of having more Tory voters than Labour one in their support, but unlike the other ones, their supporters are usually quite pleasant, if a little sparse on occasion!
Both Bobby Murdoch and Jock Stein are on record as saying that St Johnstone were the team, next to Rangers, who gave Celtic the most bother in the 1960s and 1970s. My memories include two mid week games at Muirton Park – one a 6-1 display of devastating football in 1968 when we were chasing the League and needed to score goals. And the other was the following year when we came back from 0-2 down to win 3-2. There are a few less happy memories as well!