Cracking debut by Gordon Smith as awards host

The former SFA and Rangers supremo told a hilarious story about how he’d been in charge of St Mirren reserves against Queen of the South when assistant manager at the Paisley club.

Gordon said: “An hour before kick-off, the new Queens manager Ally McLeod asked me if I wanted a game. I was 37 at the time.

“I told him I was on the bench for St Mirren.

“So Ally then said: ‘Have you any players you can give us?’

“I said: ‘No, I’ve got 11 players and two subs.”

Smith then noticed the name of McLeod – who was 62 at the time – on the Queen of the South teamsheet!

Smith added: “Number eight was A McLeod and I thought: ‘It cannot be’.

“Sure enough Ally McLeod ran out for the game and I couldn’t believe it.

“We were winning 5-0 at half-time and I put myself on as a sub for the second half.

“I told the Queens centre half who was marking me that I couldn’t believe his manager was playing aged 62 and I said: ‘Your goalkeeper’s a good age – what age is he?’

“He said: ‘I’m the goalkeeper’.

“So I asked him who was in goal and he said that was the bus driver!

“He pointed round at the other Queens players and said: ‘That’s the physio, that’s the coach etc’.”

With St Mirren 7-0 up with three minutes to go, Queens got a penalty which Ally McLeod netted to become the oldest ever senior goalscorer!

After the game, Gordon asked McLeod why Queens were so short of players.

McLeod said that it had been the fault of the club’s new secretary.

She had arranged five reserve games for consecutive days.

“The game against us was their fifth game in five days,” Gordon laughed.