On this day in 2000 St Johnstone met Norwich City in a pre season friendly match in front of some 2,400 fans.
In what proved to be an entertaining game on a hot and sunny day, second half goals from Tommy Lovenkrands and Nick Dasovic put the home team ahead before a last minute goal by Giallanza gave the visitors a little consolation.
Saints played good passing football that day, but the highlight of the game was the outstanding performance of the trialist at right back, who turned out to be a French Guyana Internationalist – Mohammed Sylla. His pace and ability lit up the crowd every time he was on the ball and it was little surprise that Manager Sandy Clark should quickly sign him up for Saints.
The full team was : – Kevin Cuthbert, Momo Sylla, Gary Bollan, Nick Dasovic, Darren Dods, Alan Kernaghan, Paul Hartley, John-Paul McBride, Craig Russell, Tommy Lovenkrands, Paul Kane. Subs were ? Findlay, Keigan Parker ( for Russell ), Paddy Connolly, Stuart McCluskey ( for Kernaghan ), Brendan Crozier ( for McBride ) Kevin Thomas ( for Lovenkrands ), Martin Lauchlan, Marc McCulloch.
The Norwich City team included Welsh International forwards Iwan Roberts and Craig Bellamy but neither made any real impact.
Unfortunately, I don’t have details of the Canaries full team that afternoon, but other than the above, the match programme includes Malky Mackay, Paul Dalglish and Andy Marshall among others in its listings.
Momo would go on to make 39 starts and score 5 goals in his Saints career which lasted just over 12 months. In August 2001 he was transferred to Celtic for a reported fee of £750,000.
Good work by Sandy Clark.
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