It’s exciting news for St Johnstone fans that the club is close to a takeover.
Like all supporters under the age of 40, Saints being owned by Geoff Brown is the only thing I’ve known.
It doesn’t feel that long ago McDiarmid Park was shiny and new and I was coming down the A9 with dad to watch the team play Monaco.
More recently, I’ve seen them win the Scottish Cup in Glasgow and watched the other two final victories at home during the Covid year.
It was also a real honour to be invited to McDiarmid, and get on the pitch, after I won my two Olympic medals.
We were treated so well by the directors and Saints have done a brilliant job in balancing the family feel of the club with the sort of success much ‘bigger’ ones could only dream about.
But, as much as it will be sad in many ways if and when the club is sold, as Geoff Brown would probably say himself – the injection of new ideas and new people can be a real positive.
My thoughts are similar to when the Grand Slam of Curling was bought out a few weeks ago.
Like the Curling Group in Canada, I’m sure Adam Webb will speak to the right people, make informed big decisions, improve what needs to be improved and won’t break what doesn’t need fixed.
His short statement was a very good start.
He hit all the right notes without going into too much detail about the deal and the early signs are he’s a leader who the Saints fans will be able to get fully behind.
On the pitch, things are a bit worrying just now.
It was interesting to read Craig Levein say that he’s decided to shorten training.
There’s definitely common sense to that school of thought.
It’s a fine line, though.
Near the end of a season in any sport, core physical fitness shouldn’t be an issue so training too hard can be counter-productive.
But on the flip side, there is always the risk if you scale things down.
Psychologically you can feel that you might not be as prepared as usual or, even worse, a ‘summer holidays’ mindset can creep in.
That’s when the experience of a manager or head coach is priceless – and the trust he puts into his staff around him who are on top of the training data and keeping a close eye on the players.
Brother and sister Isabella and Rasmus Wranaa won gold for Sweden at the World Mixed Doubles Championship, which was a nice story to finish the curling season.
So too was Estonia finishing runners-up and getting their first ever World medal in the sport.
Mixed will always be harder to predict than the traditional team events purely because the format lends itself to big swings during a game.
It was disappointing that Scotland didn’t medal in any of the three Worlds but I do feel that we’re in a pretty solid position to qualify for all the events at the next Olympics.
Things will really serious next season, though.
The third year of the four in an Olympic cycle is when the big contenders usually start to build momentum.
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