St. Mirren Win From Three Goals Down

A rare feat in Scottish Football. But how rare?

The last time St Mirren recovered from a half-time deficit of at least two goals to avoid defeat in a league match was in October 2002, when they trailed Falkirk 3-0 at the break and drew 4-4.

Anyone who turned up in Paisley on Tuesday night for the League Cup tie against East Kilbride could have been forgiven for considering a half-time exit. Cameron Elliott scored twice for the visitors, including a penalty, to send the Buddies into half-time 2-0 down. My database has 566 St. Mirren matches in which they’ve been behind by any scoreline at half-time, and they’ve comeback to win just 31 of them.

The prospect of another comeback appeared even more remote in the 57th minute, when Craig McGuffie converted the second penalty of the evening to make it 3-0. The only question left seemed to be how severe the humiliation might become for the Paisley Saints.

What followed was extraordinary.

Eseosa Sule began the recovery by scoring the match’s third penalty in the 60th minute. Ryan Carr made it 3-2 nine minutes later, before Killian Phillips levelled the score in the 77th minute.

Those inside the SMiSA Stadium were preparing themselves for a penalty shoot-out when Malik Dijksteel struck in the third minute of stoppage time to complete a phenomenal 4-3 victory.

Carnage.

From the data I have, there are only 48 games (0.08%) in Scottish football in which at least three penalties were scored. Removing the two European matches (Strasbourg 2-1 Rangers and Antwerp 3-4 Rangers) and I find only 46 domestic matches in which three penalties were scored.

My databases have over 100,000 match results involving Scottish sides, with nearly 60,000 of them having goal data recorded.

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How Rare Is This?

From the nearly 60,000 matches where I have the order of the goalscorers listed, there were nearly 14,000 matches in which one side fell three goals behind.

Only 53 of those teams recovered to earn a draw. One was St Mirren’s 4-4 draw with Falkirk in 2002, having trailed 3-0 at half-time.

But of those 14,000 matches only 13 teams have recovered from three goals down to win, including St Mirren against East Kilbride last night.

My list is not exhaustive, and there are other examples online from earlier eras, when complete goal-order data is much harder to find.

For example, when Stenhousemuir achieved the feat against Peterhead in 2015, the club’s website highlighted two previous three-goal comebacks in their history - both against Brechin City: a 4-3 win in 1929 and a 5-4 victory in 1974.

Greenock Morton also recovered from three goals down to win 5-4 away to Partick Thistle in 1926, as recorded in the excellently named “collapses” section of the Partick Thistle Archive.

As explained this is not a definitive all time list, but this next graphic contains all 13 modern day examples in which a Scottish team has fought back from three goals down to win the match.

Also included is the minute the opposition were leading by three goals until, to see where St Mirren’s comeback in the last half hour ranks against similar achievements.