The Hidden Leg — Steven Anderson — Dundee United v St Johnstone 2014
On the 17th of May 2014, St Johnstone defeated Dundee United 2–0 in the Scottish Cup Final. Whilst the majority of the media and Scottish football supporting public alike had Dundee United down as clear favourites, it was the Perth Saints who came out on top that day. Steven Anderson, who opened the scoring, talks us through just how important conditioning, mindset and psychology was in giving them the platform to lift the famous old trophy.
‘We were hard-working, had a good team spirit and were loyal to each other,’ said Steven.
‘We were actually pretty confident. Even though we had the upper hand on them that season, the press kind of took that away from us and instead it was all about Dundee United.’
Whilst the Saints boasted a formidable strike parntership in Stevie May and Steven MacLean and a solid defensive unit in the shape of Steven and his teammates Frazer Wright, Dave Mackay and Brian Easton, almost all of the plaudits fell at the door of the Tannadice side.
‘There was a lot of hype with the young players. That’s all well and good that they had a lot of good young players — John Souttar, Ryan Gauld, Robertson, Ciftci was young as well. Right good players, but at that time they were just breaking through.’
United were known throughout that season for their free-flowing attacking football, but at times though they were a little erratic, inconsistent and perhaps even naive in their desire to play an attacking style of football. The polar opposite, Steven says, was the case for the Perthshire outfit.
‘We were a lot more streetwise and we knew how to win games 1–0 or 2–0. Especially when we went ahead, we knew we weren’t getting beat. We were quite solid as a unit.
‘Set-plays were a big thing. They weren’t the smallest side but they weren’t aggressive at all. The way Tommy Wright set us up, we were quite strong at set-plays and from what I’ve heard, United didn’t even work on them before the final.’
Whilst some groups thrive on, at the beginning of the season, setting outlandish and perhaps unlikely targets, that particular St Johnstone side thrived on setting more realistic goals, which, once reached, allowed confidence to grow in the group.
‘We would always play it down. Every season it was all about staying up. I think that’s why we always seemed to do well in the top 6, when it came to the final five games of the season. Because we achieved the top 6, we were told to go and play with a smile on our faces.’
This modesty and tendency to play things down was perhaps taken too literally by the media and whilst they romanticised the United side, Saints, instead, used it to their advantage.
‘You take a blind eye to the media. I was just very confident even though they had good players. I don’t like reading the media, I don’t read papers. It didn’t interest me what they were saying. Tommy Wright was saying all the pressure was on Dundee United and the press went with it.
‘If you watched any of Tommy’s interviews beforehand, he was guessing who would play for United. Saying John Souttar wouldn’t be playing, Gauld would be left out. Bit of mind games. There was no pressure on us. We’d done our press at the start so the pressure wasn’t there. All the talk about Dundee United suited us.’
So, with the noise and potential distraction of the media war out of the way, familiarity appeared to be key for the St Johnstone side in terms of their football-based preparation for the game.
‘Our preparation basically stemmed from the semi-final. We went straight down to the Hilton Hotel in Dunkeld and had a couple of days away from everything.
‘Tommy Wright was clever with that, making sure we got the press done early doors in the week. That gave us a couple of days in Dunkeld to relax, have the Wednesday off and train on the Thursday.’
Hoping to create almost a carbon copy of the semi-final preparations, it almost came at a cost for one of the Saints employees.
‘We were so similar to the semi-final that the sport scientist, Colin, was late for the semi for the bus going to the game. So Tommy wanted to replicate that and had him running down the street, catching the bus down at the bottom of the driveway.’
Steven was also keen to reiterate that a fair amount of the work done in the build up to the training pitch was focused on United. Not in a negative sense though. Not because they were more focused on United’s threat and looking to be more reactive than proactive. Instead, the preparation was shaped due to the fact that they already knew exactly who they were as a team and were comfortable in their identity.
‘We were so settled so it didn’t need to be focused on us (the build up). We knew their main strength was attack, but we knew how to snuff them out. Their best player at the time was Nadir Ciftci. He was technically very good. Strong. Reasonably quick as well. He was different class, but had something about him that you could take advantage of and disrupt him in games. Me and Frazer Wright had the upper hand on him. Frazer was in his ear most of the time. He couldn’t take it. Sometimes he’d say something back and you knew you had him.’
As Saints came out on top that day and Steven playing an enormous part in the victory, if he had to define though, where was the game won and lost?
‘We had a psychological advantage. Even though we had the better record against them and the media put pressure on them to win. Maybe Jackie McNamara was thinking about it too much on their part?
‘We didn’t have anyone that was big-time, no self-preservation. Didn’t think it was all about them. We were a hard-working team, that was our ethos.’
