Is this the most challenging football club to manage in Britain?
St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson is holding it together in the face of a series of unfortunate events.A mid-table team in the Scottish Premiership might not seem the likeliest candidate to be considered Britain’s unluckiest football club, but spare a thought for Stephen Robinson.St Mirren are poised just outside the Premiership’s top six but an extraordinary run of player problems and even an untimely brush with the forces of nature have left manager Robinson to rue his fortunes so far this autumn.
The Buddies’ home win against St Johnstone last Wednesday was a rare oasis of calm under the floodlights in Paisley. All three league wins this season have been at home. The other two were against Hibernian and Hearts, the two Edinburgh sides propping up the table with three wins between them.
St Mirren’s team selection has been unduly affected by personnel issues.
Fan-owned St Mirren posted two consecutive club statements on their website last week, confirming that striker Kevin van Veen (charged with domestic abuse) and left-back Jaden Brown (awaiting sentencing for three driving offences) had appeared in court on the same day and would be unavailable for Saturday’s fixture against Ross County, which ended 0-0.
Van Veen and Brown also missed the win against St Johnstone with the club stating that the on-loan Dutch striker was absent through injury, though he appeared in court the following day and his case is ongoing.
Remarkably, St Mirren had already dealt with a similar situation. Late in September, new signing Shaun Rooney was charged with assaulting an 18-year-old woman in a takeaway in Glasgow and with a breach of the peace – treated as a hate crime – involving an 18-year-old man.Rooney promptly left St Mirren by mutual consent last month and Robinson must have expected that to be the last time a player would take himself out of contention by getting involved with the authorities.
