The St Johnstone FC Heritage Collection

Other than the ‘bread and butter’ of week in, week out domestic football we had special occasions such as David Wotherspoon becoming the first Saints player to appear in a World Cup Final; we had James Brown capped for Malta and Daniel Phillips for Trinidad and Tobago; the ending of an era in the Boardroom and of course the change of manager towards the end of the campaign.

Plenty, then, to be captured for the club’s official archive collection or, as it was rebranded last year, ‘The St Johnstone FC Heritage Collection’.

The collection was started in 2001 and its aim has always been to obtain, preserve and catalogue the memorabilia and historical records of St Johnstone Football Club and its supporters and use these items to market and promote the club. 

At that early stage, the collection was essentially the various items of memorabilia which the club had accumulated over the years, some of which was on display in various places around McDiarmid Park and some of which was ‘stored’ albeit although not in the best of environments.

After a couple of early changes of storeroom, the collection has been housed for many years now in a dedicated room deep within the stadium and over time steps have been taken to ensure the correct type of shelving has been installed and that items are stored in the right environmental conditions and correct type of archival boxes or folders.

That latter aspect of correct storage is very much a work in progress with museum-standard archival storage boxes and folders being purchased as and when available.

Over the course of the intervening years the collection has grown in size from a range of sources.  We have received a great many donations of memorabilia.  Often the families of supporters who have sadly passed away have contacted us and they take solace in the fact that their loved one’s Saints-related items have ended up with the club their loved one supported.

One of the other avenues for adding to the collection has simply been the club’s own internal resources.

For example, our pretty comprehensive collection of jerseys is simply added to from within the building each year and in terms of ‘special occasions’ then, of course, the club’s very involvement in things such as cup finals and European matches has opened up avenues.

Examples of that are things such as pennants, passes and itineraries which the club obviously gets access to at these games. 

Perhaps our finest ‘grab’ was the match ball which was in play when the final whistle sounded in the 2021 Betfred Cup Final at Hampden.  No sooner had referee Don Robertson started to walk up the tunnel than the Betfred-branded ball was secured from his grip and is now fully signed by the team from historic occasion and is a prize asset in the collection!

Previously known simply as the St Johnstone FC Archive, the title The St Johnstone FC Heritage Collection was adopted in 2022 to better describe the aims of the Collection and with a view to possible future developments.  We hope to have an ‘archive day’ exhibition of some of the collection later in the year and there are a number of strands to future projects.

The season just ended saw the creation of a themed display case within the Muirton Suite highlighting the club’s involvement in the Texaco Cup competition in the 1970s and it will be replaced with another themed board next season.

We also took the opportunity to transform one display case in the same suite to highlight the magnificent year we all enjoyed in 2021.  Updating the other display cases within the Muirton Suite is another project on the agenda.

A few months ago, we received a visit from the Business Archives Surveying Officer for Scotland who, in her post-visit report, described our collection as having “both local and national value, as well as being an extraordinary asset to the club itself.”

The club is always interested to hear about items of interest and should you have any items of memorabilia you think the club may not have or even be aware of then please get in touch.  Even if you have no intention of parting with the item – we know how much football fans cherish their memorabilia – but think you have something unusual then please still let us know so that we at least have a record of it.  Email paulsmith@perthsaints.co.uk

This article originally appeared in the St Johnstone v Livingston match programme on 28th May 2023.