When the Saints

A live blog on Sunday to mark the first national final of the season. If only to chart the time it takes for Chick Young to explode as both his teams battle it out at Hampden.

Actually Chico has quite a readable blog on the BBC site about St Mirren's propensity for self destruction. Even if we must question a man with his (alleged?) loyalties writing the following with a straight face:

Unite and realise that days like Sunday - national finals - are collector's items for clubs like ours.

Bonus rows always annoy me before big games like this. A total kick in the face to fans who are paying big money to go and support their team. And, yes, Gus McPherson is struggling in the league at the moment. But this is a cup final. The fans should at least fall in behind the manager - their most successful for years - until the big match is out of the way.

A full preview to follow but a depressing statistic for St Mirren. Rangers haven't lost a league cup final to anyone but Celtic since 1989/90. Aberdeen beat them 2-1 in that game with a Paul Mason double enough to overcome a Mark Walters penalty after extra time.

Before that it was Dundee in 1951/52. So they've got a bit of form going into this one.

I was actually hit by a wave of nostalgia when I saw the teams that Aberdeen and Rangers started with back in 1989:

Aberdeen: Theo Snelders, Stewart McKimmie, Alex McLeish, Willie Miller, David Robertson, Bobby Connor, Eoin Jess, Jim Bett, Brian Grant, Charlie Nicholas, Paul Mason

Rangers: Chris Woods, Gary Stevens, Richard Gough, Terry Butcher, Stuart Munro, Trevor Steven, Ian Ferguson, Ray Wilkins, Mark Walters, Ally McCoist, Mo Johnston

Charlie Nicholas also played a role the last time either of the ugly sisters lost the League Cup final to a non Old Firm side. On that day in 1994/95 he was playing against Raith Rovers.