HE WAS entitled to believe that, when he joined St Johnstone from Rangers in 2001, there were no longer any obstacles impeding his development and therefore no conceivable reason why his slow-burning career could not, at last, catch fire. Two years, one settling-in period and a catalogue of injuries later, Peter MacDonald knows better than to be so presumptuous.
These past few weeks have been as satisfying as any the striker has known. His return from long-term injury in September, and a haul of five goals since, has been perhaps the single most important factor in St Johnstone’s eight-match unbeaten run, a sequence that has served to re-establish them as favourites for promotion from the First Division.
He has, however, endured enough disappointments even this early in his playing days to receive his belated emergence with a degree of caution. MacDonald, 23 tomorrow, is a confident, chirpy chappy, even gallus in the best traditions of his Pollok upbringing, but injuries, misfortune and the death of his father last summer have instilled in him a refreshing dose of realism.
His ambitions, for instance, are those of a player no longer under the illusion that the world is at his feet. This afternoon, he will be at Glebe Park, where St Johnstone’s league campaign continues against Brechin City. "Like everybody, I want to play at the highest level, with the biggest club I can, but sometimes you cannot do that, and you have to content yourself with making as good a living as you can: get yourself a nice house, girlfriend, that sort of thing."
And, even as he laps up this latest attempt to put injuries behind him, there seems to be fragility in his freedom. The metatarsal that he fractured in his left foot in a league match against St Mirren nearly seven months ago is still bothering him. "Is God not on my side or what? I feel like I have never got going in my career."
Rangers ensured that his start would be a slow one. During his emergence into adulthood at Ibrox, he made only one appearance there, and that was in an under-18 fixture against Dundee United. Not once was he selected for the first team, and when Dick Advocaat identified Marcus Gayle as a more likely source of goals, he knew it was time to leave.
MacDonald, though, is aggrieved not so much by that as by the restraints under which he has been working since. In his first season away from the brick wall he was banging his head against at Ibrox, St Johnstone were still in the Premierleague, and unable to offer their £125,000 signing more than 15 starts so soon after his work in Rangers’ under-21 side.
Last season, six matches after the relegated Perth club had started their First Division campaign, his groin gave way and kept him out of the first team until March. Nine games after his return came the stress fracture that excluded him from Billy Stark’s side until only eight matches ago. MacDonald is not injury prone, but there have been a few bad breaks.
He had the additional burden towards last season’s end of knowing that his father was losing his long battle with cancer. Peter MacDonald senior died on July 27, leaving his son with memories of the times they shared in football, at Ibrox, in the boys’ game and during those early, innocent years when they would go to the sports shop together to buy shinguards.
"For a while, I put the injury to the back of my mind because it was the right thing to do. Football would be there tomorrow, but my dad wouldn’t. After that, though, it wasn’t hard to motivate myself to get back on track because I knew he would not have wanted it any other way. He wanted everything to carry on as normal. I owed it to him."
Should his father still be watching over him, at least the view is now one to appreciate. MacDonald sparked a transformation in St Johnstone’s season with two spectacular goals, one with each foot, in a 3-0 win at Brockville in September. The Perth side have not looked back since that startling defeat of Falkirk, a turning point that had the effect of silencing Stark’s most vociferous critics.
"That was ridiculous anyway," says MacDonald. "A couple of bad results and the fans here get edgy, but I have always believed in the manager. People seem to think he is not passionate enough, but it’s just that he doesn’t rant and rave. That’s a good thing. It does nothing for me when people start screaming. He will tell you what you are doing wrong rather than shout at you. He is constructive."
Stark previously played MacDonald wide on the left, but is now exploiting the instinct that made him a top scorer with Rangers’ under-21s. In recent weeks, the two-footed striker has given St Johnstone a new dimension with his strength and ability to hold the ball up. His incursions through the middle, with Mixu Paatelainen feeding him scraps, have been such that Simon Donnelly is withdrawn to the right of midfield and Kiegan Parker to the bench.
The improving contribution of former Aberdeen midfielder Paul Bernard represents a reminder that St Johnstone are complementing their hard-working bargain buys with a few familiar faces. The importance of their experience manifested itself in a 3-2 win against Dunfermline Athletic in the CIS Cup, for which they were rewarded with a quarter-final tie against MacDonald’s former club.
"These are the kind of teams we want to be playing every week," he says. "There is a lot of quality in the side just now, and a lot of experience. It’s a Prem- ierleague midfield really. I would like to think that if we got up there we could stay there, but this is a hard division, maybe the hardest of the four. There are probably six teams who can win the title."
Needless to say, second-placed St Johnstone are among them. It would be an achievement for MacDonald to reach the end of the season without further injury, but the feat he and his team-mates are most anxious to accomplish is that which would earn promotion.
These past few weeks have been as satisfying as any the striker has known. His return from long-term injury in September, and a haul of five goals since, has been perhaps the single most important factor in St Johnstone’s eight-match unbeaten run, a sequence that has served to re-establish them as favourites for promotion from the First Division.
He has, however, endured enough disappointments even this early in his playing days to receive his belated emergence with a degree of caution. MacDonald, 23 tomorrow, is a confident, chirpy chappy, even gallus in the best traditions of his Pollok upbringing, but injuries, misfortune and the death of his father last summer have instilled in him a refreshing dose of realism.
His ambitions, for instance, are those of a player no longer under the illusion that the world is at his feet. This afternoon, he will be at Glebe Park, where St Johnstone’s league campaign continues against Brechin City. "Like everybody, I want to play at the highest level, with the biggest club I can, but sometimes you cannot do that, and you have to content yourself with making as good a living as you can: get yourself a nice house, girlfriend, that sort of thing."
And, even as he laps up this latest attempt to put injuries behind him, there seems to be fragility in his freedom. The metatarsal that he fractured in his left foot in a league match against St Mirren nearly seven months ago is still bothering him. "Is God not on my side or what? I feel like I have never got going in my career."
Rangers ensured that his start would be a slow one. During his emergence into adulthood at Ibrox, he made only one appearance there, and that was in an under-18 fixture against Dundee United. Not once was he selected for the first team, and when Dick Advocaat identified Marcus Gayle as a more likely source of goals, he knew it was time to leave.
MacDonald, though, is aggrieved not so much by that as by the restraints under which he has been working since. In his first season away from the brick wall he was banging his head against at Ibrox, St Johnstone were still in the Premierleague, and unable to offer their £125,000 signing more than 15 starts so soon after his work in Rangers’ under-21 side.
Last season, six matches after the relegated Perth club had started their First Division campaign, his groin gave way and kept him out of the first team until March. Nine games after his return came the stress fracture that excluded him from Billy Stark’s side until only eight matches ago. MacDonald is not injury prone, but there have been a few bad breaks.
He had the additional burden towards last season’s end of knowing that his father was losing his long battle with cancer. Peter MacDonald senior died on July 27, leaving his son with memories of the times they shared in football, at Ibrox, in the boys’ game and during those early, innocent years when they would go to the sports shop together to buy shinguards.
"For a while, I put the injury to the back of my mind because it was the right thing to do. Football would be there tomorrow, but my dad wouldn’t. After that, though, it wasn’t hard to motivate myself to get back on track because I knew he would not have wanted it any other way. He wanted everything to carry on as normal. I owed it to him."
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"That was ridiculous anyway," says MacDonald. "A couple of bad results and the fans here get edgy, but I have always believed in the manager. People seem to think he is not passionate enough, but it’s just that he doesn’t rant and rave. That’s a good thing. It does nothing for me when people start screaming. He will tell you what you are doing wrong rather than shout at you. He is constructive."
Stark previously played MacDonald wide on the left, but is now exploiting the instinct that made him a top scorer with Rangers’ under-21s. In recent weeks, the two-footed striker has given St Johnstone a new dimension with his strength and ability to hold the ball up. His incursions through the middle, with Mixu Paatelainen feeding him scraps, have been such that Simon Donnelly is withdrawn to the right of midfield and Kiegan Parker to the bench.
The improving contribution of former Aberdeen midfielder Paul Bernard represents a reminder that St Johnstone are complementing their hard-working bargain buys with a few familiar faces. The importance of their experience manifested itself in a 3-2 win against Dunfermline Athletic in the CIS Cup, for which they were rewarded with a quarter-final tie against MacDonald’s former club.
"These are the kind of teams we want to be playing every week," he says. "There is a lot of quality in the side just now, and a lot of experience. It’s a Prem- ierleague midfield really. I would like to think that if we got up there we could stay there, but this is a hard division, maybe the hardest of the four. There are probably six teams who can win the title."
Needless to say, second-placed St Johnstone are among them. It would be an achievement for MacDonald to reach the end of the season without further injury, but the feat he and his team-mates are most anxious to accomplish is that which would earn promotion.