As I start to get to grips with my new role as Chairman I am very aware of the speculation and debate, on social media and elsewhere, regarding the capacity permitted at the stadium currently.

I’m sure you agree that the safety of our supporters, staff and players are of paramount importance.

Our safety team has spent a considerable amount of time trying to maximise the capacity whilst remaining compliant with current COVID-19 rules. They have spoken to other clubs to examine their processes, ground layout and systems as well as working closely with Renfrewshire Council regarding the delivery of matches at the SMiSA Stadium.

However, as a result of our seating layout we have to leave two seats free between supporters. We also can only use every second row (7 out of 14).

Additionally, with upgrade work at the St Mirren Training Ground taking place, the Main Stand is a Red Zone area as this is in use every day by the players as their training base. There is currently no way of segregating part of the Main Stand to allow supporters to sit there for matches.

I understand why comparisons are drawn with other clubs. However, these comparisons are not like for like. Tony and the team are working to improve longstanding infrastructure issues within the stadium. These are being dealt with as fast as possible and I am hopeful that they will be resolved imminently.

Unfortunately this means our plan must remain the same until 9 August. I anticipate fresh guidance coming out soon that will apply after 9 August. I don’t know what that will look like but I hope to see a lifting of restrictions for fans which will enable us to welcome back our supporters en masse. Meantime our capacity will remain at 1039 for the first home league match of the season. I’m really sorry that this is the case and can only ask that you bear with us meantime.

To ensure we use every one of those 1039 seats I ask that anyone that has entered or is planning to enter the ballot for the Hearts game on 7 August only does so if they plan to attend.

Disappointingly I have learnt of instances of staff being abused by fans in recent days. St Mirren FC has a zero tolerance stance on abuse of any form. The staff team have been working tirelessly to resolve issues with tickets and to manage ballots in extremely difficult circumstances. The past year has been hard for all football fans, but it has also been hard for the staff and I would ask for your understanding and support as we complete the systems changes that will make us more professional and efficient in future.

I would also personally like to thank the staff who have been working hard behind the scenes to manage significant change within the club. This includes the team responsible for upgrading the stadium and those who have implemented the new ticketing system in a very short period of time. That process was planned to be conducted over a number of months but had to be condensed into 2 weeks when we learnt of the impending failure of the previous supplier. Despite this your support has been magnificent again and we have around 2800 season tickets sold to date. Thank You! The early Bird offer remains available until 9 August.

Finally I want to assure you that everyone at the Club shares your desire to have you all back at the stadium as soon as possible.

St Mirren TV is back for the new season!

Last season we offered season ticket holders three free months access to the full St Mirren TV platform as well as access to all home league matches. We are pleased to say we will once again be offering this to season ticket holders (until 1st November 2021). Those who renewed after this point will be able to access the platform from next week.

As we have changed ticketing provider this season, the login details you used last season are no longer active. A new username and password have been created for you; you just click the login button in the top right-hand corner of the screen (If using a laptop/PC).

Your username is your first-name, surname, and the season ticket order number that the club has given you. Please note your season ticket order number can be found on the email you were sent when you completed your purchase of a season ticket, not your registration. 

An example of a login is: John-Smith-1234 etc.

PLEASE ENTER THE DASHES BETWEEN THE NAME AND NUMBER AS PER THE EXAMPLE ABOVE. 

The password is the same order ID number in your login. An example being: 1234 

There will be an opportunity for you to test your login tomorrow (Friday 30th July 2021) between the hours of 10:30 and 14:00. 

Outside of this, you will still be able to test your login to the site. The direct link to login to the St Mirren TV site is: https://tv.stmirren.com/ 

Should you encounter any issues, please contact the support team via email: tvsupport@stmirren.com 

The cinch Premiership season gets underway on Saturday with Saints travelling to Dundee on the opening day.

Jim Goodwin's side head into the Premiership season in good form having qualified for the second round of the Premier Sports Cup with 12 points from 12. 

The Buddies scored six goals in wins against Dunfermline Athletic, Stenhousemuir and Partick Thistle, while being awarded a 3-0 win over Dumbarton. 

Likewise, Dundee also took maximum points in their Premier Sports Cup group to secure their passage into the next round. James McPake's side topped their group after wins over Brora Rangers, Montrose and Forfar Athletic, while they were also awarded a 3-0 win over Ross County.

Match Details

Dundee v St Mirren
Competition: cinch Premiership
Date: Saturday 31st July 2021
Kick-off: 3pm
Venue: Kilmac Stadium

How to watch the match

The match will be available for St Mirren fans to purchase on Dundee's PPV website. 

International subscribers can watch the match live on tv.stmirren.com as part of their subscription.

Previous

Saints are unbeaten in their last five against Dundee - winning four and drawing the other. 

The last meeting between the two came at the Kilmac Stadium on the final day of the 2018/19 season. The Buddies came from behind to win 3-2 thanks to Cody Cooke's second-half hat-trick. 

Saints have also won in three of the last four trips to the Kilmac Stadium with the last defeat back in 2013.

Cody Cooke scored a hat-trick on Saints' last visit to the Kilmac Stadium. 

Manager's thoughts

"I think we’re all really excited. To get through the group stages of the Premier Sports Cup in the manner we did was very pleasing but the league is the most important thing to us.

"We really want to get off to a good start and get some momentum behind us.

"I think it is probably going to be the toughest Premier League in a decade. All the big boys are back.

"The two big Dundee clubs, two Edinburgh clubs, two Glasgow clubs, and Aberdeen are there. If you look at the history of all those clubs, they are big clubs with big fanbases and decent budgets.

"That will only add to the quality of the league and we’re all very excited for it."

The officials

 Craig Napier will take charge of the match on Saturday. His assistants are Frank Connor and Jonathan Bell, while Mike Roncone is the fourth official. 

Following two ballots during our Premier Sports Cup matches against Dunfermline Athletic and Partick Thistle, the club has reflected on how our ballot process should work going forward.

We allocated 1039 tickets for the match against Partick Thistle, unfortunately as you may have seen, not all attended on the day.

For our opening cinch Premiership home match against Hearts, we are now asking season ticket holders who wish to attend to opt in at this LINK by 23:59 on Sunday 1st August 2021.

If you are waiting for your season ticket to be renewed for any reason and wish to enter the ballot, then please email help@stmirren.com with the subject header HEARTS BALLOT confirming your name, email address and number of tickets in your account.

If you were a season ticket holder last season and haven't yet renewed your seat is being held and you will have to contact us either by phone or visit the ticket office. 

You will receive an email (or phone call in certain cases) notifying that you have been successful by the end of the day on Tuesday 3rd August, at which point we will ask you to confirm your tickets and select your seats.

We hope that covid restrictions will ease on August 9th as per Scottish Government plans and, as such, allow this to be the final ballot we have to conduct. However, should there be the need for a ballot for the next home match (St Johnstone, Aug 28), those who are successful for the Hearts match will be excluded to try and give all season ticket holders as fair an opportunity to attend league matches. Season ticket holders who are unsuccessful in the ballot will be able to watch the match for free on St Mirren TV.

I want to start by adding my support to the many accolades Gordon Scott rightly received yesterday. He has led the Club through a period of consistent and significant improvement and on to fan ownership. He should always be remembered for that.

Now that my appointment as Chairman has been announced I want all of our fans and everyone involved with the Club to be reassured that my priority is to build on the success that’s been achieved in recent years in conjunction with everyone involved with St Mirren. That will involve Directors, staff and most importantly our loyal and faithful fans. The potential of our Club, with its proud history and community focus, is enormous.

As a lifelong fan I am hugely honoured to have been given this opportunity and will do my utmost to repay the faith shown in me.

John

Six long years ago I was running along the boardwalk in Spain considering what I wanted to do with the next 10 years of my life.

I looked back at all the things I had achieved in my life and asked myself which one had given me the most pleasure. The answer I came up with was my seven years as a director of St Mirren FC and primarily my involvement in the design and construction of the new stadium.

The club was still up for sale and had just been relegated to the championship which meant that the asking price became more achievable. The idea of fan ownership had been floated but the financial figures involved were too high to see how it would work and at the same time allow the club to progress.

I have always had a good relationship with SMiSA and decided to approach them with a view to discussing a model with me as the initial majority shareholder but with a ten-year plan to deliver sustainable fan ownership.

Over the next year we spent many hours discussing how that model would work and trying to agree a deal with the selling consortium. Despite many setbacks where it appeared dead and buried, we kept persevering and eventually managed to agree a deal on July 22nd, 2016.

Over the last five years I am immensely proud of what we have achieved as a football club with the unwavering support of the SMiSA board and all its members, our club sponsors, and our fans.

• We have progressed on the pitch from the bottom of the championship to a team that has realistic expectations of breaking into and maintaining a position in the top six of the Premiership.
• We won the Championship trophy in our first full season in control.
• We have just achieved our highest ever position in the Premiership and our highest overall league position since 1988/89.
• We reached two major cup semi-finals in the one season for the first time since 1981/82.
• On our first ever visit to the play offs we beat Dundee United on penalties in front of the first ever full house at St Mirren Park.
• We have achieved record season ticket sales at St Mirren Park for the last two years.
• We have posted five years of very profitable accounts which has helped the club not just survive covid but allowed us to continue our forward momentum without putting the club under any financial duress.
• The St Mirren Charitable Foundation was created and its impact on people’s lives, especially during covid, has been humbling at times. This will continue to grow and evolve into something even more special.
• We now have a women’s team which will become an even more integral part of the club going forward. We had our first ever women’s league game at St Mirren Park which attracted a record attendance for Scottish women’s football.
• We have upgraded the infrastructure of the stadium with a new sound system, and low energy led lighting throughout and taken the first steps towards making it feel more like a home.
• We installed a widely acclaimed wheelchair platform at the back of the main stand.
• A new state of the art synthetic grass pitch was installed at the academy.
• And last, but by no means least, we have helped deliver fan ownership.

We had always said that we had 10 years to deliver a sustainable fan ownership model but when the opportunity arose to deliver this in five years in partnership with Kibble, who would offer support and assistance in mapping out the corporate governance of the club, it was too good an opportunity to miss.

I had been very much a hands-on chairman and worked daily at the club for the first four years, however, we would never have achieved the success we had over that period without the exceptional staff working at both the club and academy.

I have loved every minute of my time and consider it an honour to have been chairman of our great club and to have been a member of a board where we have all contributed to the last five years achievements.

As I hand over the keys to SMiSA on July 27th I think the time is right to also hand over the chairmanship.

Whilst I am stepping down as chairman I will continue to serve as a club director on behalf of SMiSA utilising the knowledge I have gained over my 13 years on the club board. I am excited to be part of the new fan ownership era and all the opportunities it will present.

I wish our new chairman John Needham every success and look forward to working alongside him to help ensure our continued progress. It is fitting that a SMiSA club board representative should be the person to lead us into the new era.

Thank you all for your faith and support over the last five years.

Gordon Scott
Chairman
COYS

St Mirren is happy to welcome our new retail partners, Pitch Pro Retail, who have officially taken ownership of the club shop.

The club and Pitch Pro Retail will work together to provide increased opening hours for the shop, match day access and invest in its online shopping opportunities.

With Pitch Pro Retail now officially in place, work has been ongoing to refurbish the club shop at the SMiSA Stadium as well as testing of the new website and till system. We will have a fresh new club shop stocked with training and replica kit very soon.

Unfortunately, the unforeseen change of principal sponsor in June has led to delay in the production of the new strips for sale to supporters. The tops require an overprint and Pitch Pro Retail have been hard at work to print overlays of our new sponsor, Digby Brown’s logo on all home and away tops with the hope of having them on sale in the new club shop and online in the middle of August.

We appreciate the frustrations of supporters with regards to the 2021/22 kit but thank you for your continued patience and support of the club.

St Mirren have today completed their five-year journey to become a fan-owned club.

The St Mirren Independent Supporters Association (SMISA) have bought out the remaining shareholding of chairman Gordon Scott to become majority (51%) owners of the Buddies.

The deal helps to safeguard the future of the club – formed in 1877 – by placing it in the hands of its supporters, the people who care for it the most.

The move into fan ownership comes in conjunction with charity and social enterprise Kibble who last year bought a 27 percent stake to become part-owners of the club.

That model – where the club is owned by its fans and run in partnership with a charity – is believed to be unique in top-flight European football and has allowed SMISA to complete the transition to fan ownership in five years rather than the original 10-year plan set out in 2016.

And the dream of fan ownership has only been realised thanks to the financial backing from SMISA’s near-1200 strong membership over the past five years and the support and growth of SMISA in general from its formation almost 20 years ago.

Now that the shares have been purchased, the members’ contributions will instead go towards supporting different areas of the club including the youth academy and the charitable foundation.

SMISA will now have four representatives on the St Mirren board, with Scott and Alan Wardrop joining existing SMISA-appointed club directors John Needham and David Riley.

And, although the club is now owned by its fans, the day-to-day operations will continue to be run by CEO Tony Fitzpatrick and the St Mirren staff.

Scott, who made fan ownership possible by teaming up with SMISA to buy out the previous owners back in 2016, was pleased to see the deal come to fruition on a special day at the SMISA stadium.

He said: "I am immensely proud of the part I have played in delivering fan ownership.

"We had always said that we had ten years to deliver a sustainable model but when the opportunity arose to deliver this now in partnership with Kibble it was too good an opportunity to miss.

"We have taken giant strides over the last five seasons both on the pitch and off it and with the deal now complete I am convinced that this model will allow us to continue that progress."

SMISA chair George Adam added: "This is a really proud day not just for St Mirren fans but for the people of Paisley and beyond.

"To have our club now owned by the supporters means we will never have to worry again about it being run by people without St Mirren’s best interests at heart.

"It’s a real testimony to the fans who were presented with a vision back in 2015 and have now been able to make it a reality. I’ve never been prouder to be a Buddie."

Kibble chief executive and St Mirren vice-chairman Jim Gillespie said: "This is a historic day for St Mirren’s fans.

"They are now in charge of the destiny of the club they love, and Kibble are delighted to be working with SMISA and to have played our part in making this possible.

"When we agreed to become shareholders and partners last year, it was because we were excited about the chance to work hand-in-hand with SMISA to help take the club forward while improving the lives of young people in the Renfrewshire area.

"We believe we are starting to see the fruits of that relationship and look forward to contributing towards many more successful years at St Mirren."

Supporters Direct Scotland chief executive Alan Russell added: “At SD Scotland we are delighted to see SMISA reach this milestone and are proud to have supported them on their journey towards fan ownership.

"They have shown what can be achieved by working in close partnership with other shareholders and other community organisations and have had one hand on the steering wheel as St Mirren FC have established themselves in the Premiership once again.

"Their experience as minority shareholders over the last few years will be invaluable as they take ownership of the club - and they join the family of fan-owned clubs who are a beacon to the whole supporters trust movement in Scotland and beyond. Congratulations!"

Anyone wishing to join SMISA can do so from as little as £5 a month at smisa.net/signup

St Mirren have been drawn away to face Livingston in the last 16 of the Premier Sports Cup. 

The match will take place at the Tony Macaroni Arena on the weekend of 14/15th August.

Saints progressed to the last 16 of the tournament as a seeded team after picking up maximum points in Group H. 

St Mirren will face Livingston at the Tony Macaroni Arena after qualifying for the last 16 of the Premier Sports Cup after a 2-0 win over Partick Thistle.

Jamie McGrath and Joe Shaughnessy were on the scoresheet as the Buddies picked up the required result to ensure seeding in the next round of the cup.

Jay Henderson lifted the ball over Richard Foster and burst into the box before being hauled down by the experienced Thistle defender. McGrath was the man to step up and as he did so often last season, rolled home from 12 yards to put Saints ahead. 

Jamie McGrath scores his first goal of the season to put St Mirren in front (Image: Allan Picken)

Paisley blistered in 24 degree heat and a quick water break took place following McGrath's penalty. Three minutes after play resumed, the visitors could have been level through Brian Graham but for a brilliant stop by Jak Alnwick. 

McGrath almost grabbed his and Saints' second of the afternoon a little over 10 minutes after the restart. Striding into the box from the left side, the Irishman found his way on to a beautiful weighted pass from Henderson. His first effort was blocked by a Partick defender before he fired over the second attempt. 

A minute's applause took place from the St Mirren fans in attendance in tribute of 1959 Scottish Cup winner Tommy Leishman who sadly passed away this week at the age of 83.

With 20 minutes remaining, Saints needed a second to guarantee seeding in the next round of the cup. Chance after chance was created with Curtis Main going close twice in four minutes. First, the striker did brilliantly to steal the ball off Stuart Bannigan at the edge of the Thistle box, but slammed his effort wide. Main then nodded just wide after being on the end of a pinpoint Scott Tanser cross from the left.

Shaughnessy headed over from a corner, while Henderson volleyed into the arms of Partick Thistle goalkeeper Harry Stone from close range as time ticked away.

The five minutes of additional time were almost up as Jim Goodwin willed his side on for one last push, telling goalkeeper Alnwick to get the move started. Captain Shaughnessy pressed forward from centre-half and was in the right place at the right time to tap home Lee Erwin's ball across to secure St Mirren's place in the next round of the Premier Sports Cup.

Full-Time: St Mirren 2-0 Partick Thistle

St Mirren: Alnwick, Fraser, Shaughnessy (c), Dunne, Henderson, McGrath, Power (MacPherson 82), Kiltie (Erhahon 69), Tanser, Main, Brophy (Erwin 66)
Subs Not Used: Lyness, Tait, McCarthy, Flynn, McAllister, Finlayson

Partick Thistle: Stone, Foster, Holt (Niang 61), Turner (Owens 79), Bannigan (Gordon 74), Graham, Rudden (Murray 74), Bell, McKenna, MacIver, Docherty (c)
Subs Not Used: Sneddon, Ocholi

Referee: Alan Muir
Assistant Referee: Craig Ferguson
Assistant Referee: Gordon Crawford
Fourth Official: Steven Reid

Joe Shaughnessy scores the goal that secures Saints place as a seeded team in the last 16 of the Premier Sports Cup (Image: Allan Picken)