2022 started with St Johnstone losing to Hearts and finished in the same manner.
It was a momentous calendar year in between, with Premiership status only just preserved, 50 goals scored, unlikely heroes emerging, a new team of promise developing and the club being put up for sale.
Courier Sport takes a look back at the final few months of last season and the first few of this one.
Goal of the year
James Brown and Nicky Clark came with a late run and has there ever been a better meaningless first goal than Theo Bair’s at Kilmarnock?
But none of Saints’ other 49 strikes in 2022 topped Callum Hendry’s dramatic left foot volley to beat Motherwell.
Significance and quality married together in one beautiful package.
Can't. Stop. Watching. 😍 pic.twitter.com/oLqn0esMzr
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) March 21, 2022
Save of the year
Apologies to Zander Clark and Remi Matthews, who both barely let in a goal you would expect them to keep out.
But the much-maligned Elliott Parish gets this accolade.
Seeing the back-up goalie on the team-sheet for the visit of Rangers dampened down a bit of pre-match optimism given the form Matthews had been in and Parish’s League Cup struggles and subsequent inactivity.
And the man who has since taken on the goalkeeper coaching role at McDiarmid had a bit of a shaky start to the Sunday lunchtime contest.
But, along with the two goals, Parish’s Gordon Banks impression to keep out a James Tavernier back post header will live long in the memory.
Elliot Parish or Gordon Banks? https://t.co/MCTPxmgNa0 pic.twitter.com/sNgTQl9Rxd
— Blair Kaylor (@BlairKaylor) November 7, 2022
Low point
Saints’ League Cup campaign to start this season was pretty grim but that doubles up as pre-season these days.
Panic at that stage was premature.
The 2021/22 section of the calendar year has a monopoly on all the real lower than a snake’s belly moments.
I’m surprising myself by not choosing Kelty – which was as traumatic an afternoon as there has been in the post-James Grady era of the football club.
But, even though Saints were the Scottish Cup holders and this was arguably their worst result in the history of that competition, it was all about Premiership survival.
And I still had faith that there was enough time in the January transfer window and enough money in the bank (and a willingness to spend it) to help Callum Davidson wield an effective shovel.
That faith was less secure after watching Saints being out-fought by St Mirren at the end of April.
Hope remained but it felt like blind hope that afternoon.
High point
It was against this backdrop of not being sure what type of St Johnstone would turn up in the big games and not being accustomed to that feeling for more than a decade, that the play-off final was balanced at 2-2 after the away leg and 2-2 at the end of the first half of the return match.
Stevie May scored one of his most important goals for Saints and the celebrations after Hendry and Shaun Rooney finished off carbon-copy breakaways were on the sort of level usually reserved for semi-finals or finals.
It’s easy to be snobbish about the worthiness of a top flight club saving its skin against a Championship one but, strip everything back to player and supporter exhilaration, and you have to put the occasion in with McDiarmid Park’s greatest games.
Shaun Rooney scores the 4th and final goal for St. Johnstone ️👏⚽️ pic.twitter.com/0uUD8Lp0pi
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) May 23, 2022
Worst signing
By all accounts, Nadir Ciftci was popular in the Saints dressing room and wasn’t a disruptive character.
But he was the main attacking recruit in January and if you’d said to me he won’t score a single goal for the club I wouldn’t have put a single penny on them staying up.
After a promising debut at Tynecastle, Ciftci picked up a muscle injury and it was sad to see a player (and nice man) toil in the manner the former Dundee United striker did thereafter.
Best signing
Most of the candidates for this accolade are summer recruits, though the crucial role played by Melker Hallberg last season should be mentioned.
I’m not counting loans, which rules out Remi Matthews and Alex Mitchell.
Drey Wright has been quietly effective in the main and Nicky Clark has been the missing piece of the jigsaw (everything that Ciftci wasn’t) in bringing the best out of others.
A mixture of what you'd expect (Ryan McGowan and Andy Considine proving why they were very astute signings) and a few unexpected nuggets (Drey Wright's ability to win possession and Connor McLennan's high passing accuracy). Opta stats certainly don't tell the whole story but… https://t.co/4AQCqL5CzS
— Eric Nicolson (@C_ENicolson) November 18, 2022
But I can’t split Andy Considine and Ryan McGowan so they get a joint award.
Both have been fantastic.
Their presence on the pitch reassures you that Saints will be fine and it might even drive them to heights few thought were possible in the season after a relegation scrap.
Most important player
Considine, McGowan and a few others in the present day team have elevated the club back into a position their supporters were accustomed to.
That this feels and looks like a St Johnstone side is a feather in their caps.
They lost their final game of 2022 but they were fighting to the very last kick and only on two occasions this season has that not been the case.
But the part played by Callum Hendry in Saints’ survival bid was utterly remarkable.
He’d been loaned out while his team-mates were winning a double and – as stated above – Ciftci’s arrival came with far more hype than Hendry’s return.
🎥⚽️| Not the result we wanted but @Callum_Hendry back on the scoresheet again! @StJohnstone | @spfl | #SJFC pic.twitter.com/cnhrW5bmN7
— Lewis Smith (@16smithlewis) February 27, 2022
Saints scored 19 goals between January and May. Hendry got nine of those.
It felt like a monumental, one-man contribution to a collective effort at the time.
And with another calendar year of football about to begin for St Johnstone, it should forever be regarded as such.
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