It’s no longer an issue now as the game will go ahead at City Park after all. However, that doesn’t undo the damage of the bad press the club has received in the last few days.
Mirren Mad now presents to you the various tabloid claims of what happened at Friday’s meeting between the parties involved, and what the club claims happened. I’m not saying what Saints says is the truth and the tabloids are lying; that’s for you to decide!
Newspaper claim: St. Mirren felt 3,500 fans would travel, even if they didn’t have tickets, and that they would run riot.
St. Mirren claim: Lothian & Borders police said that a few hundred ticketless Saints fans attended last year’s cup tie against Hibs, and dispersed without any problems. Strathclyde police said that St. Mirren fans are generally well behaved. Saints chairman George Campbell said they would tell fans without tickets not to attend.
Newspaper claim: St. Mirren said they didn’t have enough tickets and wanted more, and went running to the police when told they couldn’t have any.
St. Mirren claim: St. Mirren were originally offered around 700. On asking Spartans for more, they were told they could probably get just under 1,000. However, they were unable to accept this figure because of what went on at the meeting. They did not go running to the police.
Newspaper claim: St. Mirren brought a representative from Strathclyde police to back up their claims.
St. Mirren claim: Not only did the club not invite him, they were unaware he would be there. The club representatives’ at the meeting assume he was invited by either the SFA or Lothian & Borders police.
Newspaper claim: St. Mirren don’t fancy playing at City Park.
St. Mirren claim: The club has no problem playing there (although privately they probably are a bit worried).
Newspaper claim: St. Mirren have been opposed to playing at City Park since the draw and contacted Livingston days after about playing the game there. A deal in principle had been agreed
St. Mirren claim: At no point did the club approach Livingston to make a verbal agreement to play the game there.
These are the key claims raised by the newspapers over the last few days, and the St. Mirren responses to them as posted on the forum of The Official St. Mirren Website.
As I said earlier, it’s for you to decide whether the papers or the club are telling the truth, but one thing is for sure; we’ll never really know what happened during Friday’s meeting.