St Johnstone striker Cillian Sheridan revealed his off-the-wall sense of humour to the watching world when he sported a moustache for the Perth club’s last match against Hearts at the weekend.
The Tynecastle defence weren’t laughing at him or with him however, as the Irishman grabbed a double to send them back to Edinburgh pointless.
The superstitious among the Saints squad won’t let Sheridan shave it off so long as the goals and wins keep coming, and the former Celtic man is happy to oblige for the second leg of their capital city double header at Easter Road this evening.
According to Sheridan the reason he grew it in the first place was to attain some changing room gravitas.
He said: ”Because I’m one of the younger ones in the dressing room I didn’t think I was getting enough respect. So I thought with a moustache I would get proper respect. I’ve gone for the distinguished look!
”I think it’s worked. The boys are starting to take notice of me. I think it will stay for tomorrow’s match then I’ll see after that. It’s grown on me, even though it’s gone a bit ginger recently.”
The Sheridan moustache story doesn’t actually end there as, would you believe it, he has one tattooed on a finger.
He added: ”I got it done while I was in Bulgaria. Me and a friend from Ireland got them done when he was over with me in my first couple of months there. It was absolute agony.
”It was just for a laugh, no other reason, and I can hide it when I need to.
”The boys in Bulgaria loved it. I don’t know if they got my sense of humour though. It was pretty hard to get it through the translation.”
Another talking point of Sheridan’s performance against Hearts was his ”planking” goal celebration after his opener. The loan signing is an aficionado of the internet phenomenon (link).CelebrationSheridan said: ”Me and Jody (Morris) have been planking for the last few weeks and I had been thinking about doing it as a goal celebration.
”We’ve been doing it everywhere really our golf day was one of the recent ones. It’s a craze that had passed me by but when I heard about it in the summer me and Jody thought we would take it up. We’ve been posting the pictures on Twitter (link).
”I’ll not be using it as a celebration again though. Once is enough.”
Sheridan’s two goals on Sunday were his first of the season, and it had been strike partner Fran Sandaza who had been hitting the back of the net before that.
He said: ”The manager was happy with the way I was playing but strikers want goals. It was great to get my first ones at the weekend and hopefully I can kick on from that.
”Me and Fran have had a good few games together. We know how each other plays now and we’re linking up well.
”I owe a lot to the manager for sticking with me through all the games I wasn’t scoring. Other managers might not have persisted with me but he kept telling me the goals would come, and they did.”
If Saints can beat Hibs tonight they’ll complete the full set of victories this season against the Scottish clubs Sheridan has been attached to Celtic and Motherwell being the others.
”It’s not a bad omen actually”, he admitted. ”It won’t act as extra motivation but it would certainly be nice to get another good away win.
”I was only at Hibs for about 10 days on trial in the summer. It never came to the stage where I was offered the chance to sign for them because it was between Sofia and Hibs. All I’ll be thinking about tomorrow will be getting a win for St Johnstone.”
Morris and Callum Davidson both trained on Tuesday for the second day in a row and could be included in the Saints squad.