Matchday Programme

It is believed that St Mirren first produced a match programme for a match against Queen of the South on 19th August 1939 in the Scottish League First Division.

This was the first home match of the season. Due to the outbreak of WW2, football was suspended.

It is believed that the next programme issued was again, for a league match with Queen of the South on the 29th December 1945.

There had been a few 'away' programmes featuring Saints, most notably for the 1934 Scottish Cup final.

The earliest Saints programme recorded was for a match at Easter Road against Hibernian in September 1926.

The first issues of the Saints matchday programme were simple in design and usually comprised of a four page publication with many adverts and very little actual information about the match or the club.

The front cover designs were retained for several seasons at a time, with just three variations between the first in 1945 and 1965.

For season 1965-66 the format changed to include an action picture on the front cover which changed for each match.

This was continued into the 1970's with the addition of a red border, the first colour used in the programme.

1974-75 saw the first of three seasons of orange covered programmes with slight differences each season.

Promotion to the Premier Division in 1977-78 saw a return to a standard black and white issue with an action picture on the cover.

1979-80 saw a complete change of design with a landscape style programme introduced. This design lasted midway into the following season before the format changed again with a larger portrait style design which included much more colour and also regular articles about the world of football.

The 1980's saw little change in the format of the programme, with more club information being included .

1987-88 saw a return to the landscape style for three seasons.

For 1996-97 season the programme size was reduced to A5 size and this remained until promotion to the Premier League in 2000-01 which saw a return to the larger, full colour style and has remained till the present day.