There are four main examples I can think of at short notice where it has worked in Saints favour, Saturday being one of them. The Queen of the South fans decided to let current Saints player and former QoS player John O'Neill exactly what they thought of him. He ended up scoring two goals. Nice one lads!
A few weeks ago Saints brought Barry Lavety on against Airdrie United. His arrival was greeted with chants of "You Fat Bastard" from the away end. Result? Basher scored a screamer with ten minutes to go, his first of the season.
Mark Yardley was the best though. In the league challenge cup against Ayr, Saints were losing a rank game 1-0 in the first half. The Ayr fans started singing "Bring On The Yardley". In the second half we duly did, and he scored with his first touch!
The fourth example is a combined one. In just about every game against Morton, Yards got pelters. He's managed 7 goals in 7 games against them now (including a last minute winner for Albion Rovers). You'd think they'd learnt.
Of course, Saints fans aren't innocent, the best example being to give Paul Hartley abuse ever time he plays against us, usually resulting in him playing a blinder. But why do fans still do it? More often than not, it works to get the opposition player fired up rather than off his game.
A bit of banter can be funny, but all out abuse for 90 minutes is almost a guarantee that the player in question is going to score against you, and it's going to be doubly sweet for him. You'll also be able to guarantee that he'll come charging straight towards you when he does score, like O'Neill did on Saturday.
To finish with, here's another example, though it works the other way round. A few years ago, in a game at Love Street against Stranraer, the game was stopped. A few weeks earlier Morton had thrashed us 5-1 at Love Street, and former Morton player Alan Blaikie thought it would be funny to signal this fact during the stoppage whilst in front of the north bank. Late on in the game, Junior Mendes scored Saints to make the score 5-1. Of course, all the mature Saints fans didn't do anything. If anyone meets a mature Saints fan, do let me know. Near enough the entire North Bank signalled to Blaikie what the score was the next time he was in front of them. So theres a lesson folks, don't dish out abuse to the opposition, be you a player or a fan :-)