The sensible awards will be presented first to get them out of the way.
Player of the season: Ricky Gillies. I'm not much of a fan of Ricky, however he did maintain his form the whole season through and did well, and kept himself fit. The other candidates, Martin Cameron and Ludovic Roy, either had shocking periods when they were off form, or were injured.
Young player of the season: Kirk Broadfoot. Kirk was outstanding in defence, a great signing from Hibs. Simon Lappin was another contender; however he was expected to be good whilst Broadfoot wasn't really!
Goal of the season: Greenock Morton v Mark Yardley. Big Yard's only Saints' goal of the season for Saints, and his final Saints goal as well. An absolute cracker, where he skinned the Morton defence and put the ball away superbly. Archie Gemmill eat your heart out.
Match of the season: St. Mirren 4-4 Falkirk. A great match and not even a Saints win! Falkirk were 3-0 up at half time, then a superb second half saw Saints get it back to 3-3. Falkirk managed another one, before Martin Cameron scored to gain a point. Other contenders were the Morton game and the Clyde 3-2 match.
Moment of the season: The 89th minute v Arbroath at Love Street. Andy Dow takes a penalty to try and give Arbroath a point. Ludovic Roy saves in what turned out to be his final minute in a Saints shirt. Fantastic.
Signing of the season: Martin Cameron. For some reason Martin came in for a lot of criticism in the first half of the season, when he was scoring goals for fun! Fair enough criticisng him in the second half when he was rank, but he was outstanding in the first half. A fantastic signing.
Dud of the season: Andy Dow. Good god, what were you thinking Hendrie! Andy was terrible this season. Most folk thought he'd be good, he wasn't. He did manage to miss a penalty against us, so cheers!
Best decision of the season: Getting rid of Tom Hendrie. My only complaints with this were the way it was done, with the shocking leave of duties, and the fact it took so long.
Worst decision of the season: Ricky Gillies' red card. The ball was heading for the goal; it hit Ricky on the line. Inexplicably the ref thought it was deliberate and gave Alloa a penalty and sent Gillies off!
Lifetime achievement award: Mark Yardley. Even when he left Saints he still scored against Morton. A true Saints legend.
Best performance by a former Saint: Yards already has his lifetime achievement award, so this one goes to Barry Lavety, who fired Team bath into the FA Cup and a live game on Sky. Nice one Basher!
Now on to the not so sensible awards.
Best Iraqi Information Minister Impersonation: Tom Hendrie. We'd been laughing/cringing at Hendrie's quotes for quite a while (5 goals from 5 breakaways a fine example), however this statement was an absolute beauty. After Caley Thistle beat Saints 4-0 at Love Street, it was clear all was not well. The Official Website's Karin Irvine was in the process of saying Saints were a demoralised team, when we clearly were, when Hendrie stormed in with: "No you're wrong, we don't look a demoralised team." This was almost as good as calling Chris Kerr and Sergei Baltacha kids and inexperienced in the same interview, when they each have around 3 seasons of first team football, and saying we tried to draw the second half 0-0!
The Chris Sutton award for most obscure conspiracy theory: The eejits who claimed The Official Web team got Hendrie sacked. Apparently a board member asking out of curiosity what the online reaction of the fans had been after the Caley game caused Hendrie to be sacked. Erm, right.
The "Are You Still Here?" Award: Ryan Robinson. It wasn’t until he was released in January I realised we still had Robinson. A handful of sub appearances, and not one start, in a 4-5 season Love Street career and 1 appearance in the last 18 months made it quite easy to think he'd gone!
The "And What Do You Do?" Trophy: Paul Rudden. Despite leaving Saints after 5 years in the first team a few weeks ago, no one is quite sure where he plays!
Paul McKnight Memorial Trophy for services to the NHS: Greig Denham. Saints summer signing Greig Denham had made one 45 minute appearance by Christmas. He wasn't too bad after that but got injured with a month of the season left. Well done Greig, a fine effort which not even McKnight could match!
The selective memory tankard: The Scottish Press. They conveniently forgot that league rules kept Falkirk in division 1 in 2001/02 yet made a huge song and dance when they kept them out of the SPL.
And there it is, the end of season Mirren Mad awards. The season is now officially over, roll on 2003/04 and Starks Park on the 9th of August!