For St Mirren, the 2025/26 season has thus far been one of swings and roundabouts. Over on the swing, you have VAR officials smashing the "disallow goal" button like they're Fred Again at Glastonbury. On the roundabout, you have Stephen Robinson hanging off a bus on Gauze Street with the League Cup trophy.
For St Mirren, the 2025/26 season has thus far been one of swings and roundabouts.
Over on the swing, you have VAR officials smashing the "disallow goal" button like they're Fred Again at Glastonbury. On the roundabout, you have Stephen Robinson hanging off a bus on Gauze Street with the League Cup trophy.
A day after our dominant, should-have-been-more, why-is-he-holding-his-face-there, 1-0 win over David Martindale's struggling Livingston, the Saints paraded the 2025 League Cup trophy through central Paisley on an open-top bus.
By the end of the weekend, it was obvious something had shifted. Not just in the trophy cabinet or the league table, but in that harder-to-measure sense where the mood around a club just feels… different. Lighter. Less brittle. Like everyone's shoulders have dropped half an inch.
Yes, there was a game in there, and yes, St Mirren were pretty good in it. Good in a focused, quietly determined way. This was meant to be the awkward comedown - the post-cup fog where legs are heavy, breath is beery, and minds are elsewhere - but instead it felt purposeful, assured, oddly composed.
The football didn't look like a hangover; it looked like a team that had absorbed what it had achieved and refocused. That alone felt significant.
Then you add the rest of the weekend. The bus, the crowds, the cup glinting in winter light as it rolled through Paisley. Scarves held high along every street. The kind of noise that bounces off buildings. Players looking less like distant professionals and more like lads who'd done something properly meaningful for the place they represent. It all bled together - the performance, the celebration, the sense of shared ownership - into something bigger than either moment on its own.
That's why the league season suddenly feels like it's beginning now. Not restarting, not being rescued, just settling. The cup didn't distract from the campaign; it clarified it.
St Mirren look more certain of themselves, and so does everyone around them. The football's the same, the fixtures keep coming - but the noise in the background has changed. And sometimes, that's everything.
Andrew Christie can be found at Misery Hunters
Category: General Sports
