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St Johnstone legend Jason Kerr reveals why he kept his Galatasaray goal celebration low-key

Jason Kerr scores in Istanbul.
Jason Kerr scores in Istanbul. Image: SNS.

A goal to put St Johnstone in front against Galatasaray deserved an extravagant celebration.

But Jason Kerr kept his low-key because he didn’t want to be sent off!

The double-winning captain tucked away a penalty to give Saints a 1-0 lead in Turkey just over a year ago.

Some of his team-mates were happy to let the home fans know that they had been silenced by a team they might not have even heard of a few weeks earlier.

However, Kerr had a good reason to keep his emotions in check.

“I knew the minute we got the penalty that I was going to take it,” said the Wigan Athletic defender.

“I’d spoken to the gaffer the night before to tell him I was on penalties.

“Ali (McCann) had missed one against Ross County and we were on a run of missing them.

“I remember jogging up because I saw Kano (Chris Kane) with the ball in his hands, wanting to take it.

“I’d said: ‘No Kano, it’s mine’. There was then a wait and I could hear all the whistling from the fans.

“The referee then wanted me to move the ball a little bit. Not sure why.

“I enjoyed the pressure and I like having nerves like that.

“At the time I actually thought I’d caught it well.

“I just wanted to hit it quite hard into the left side of the goal. But I’ve topped the ball!

“That wasn’t great but at the end of the day it went in the back of the net. That’s what is remembered.”

Kerr added: “I was going to shoosh the Galatasaray fans but realised I was on a booking.

“It would’ve been embarrassing if I’d been sent off after scoring the penalty so I kept celebrations PG!”

Should Saints have gone gung-ho?

The ‘what if’ of the night Saints drew 1-1 in their Europa League qualifier was whether they should have thrown the kitchen sink at their opponents in that first leg.

“I watch the video back and it’s mad to think we went 1-0 up against Galatasaray away from home,” said Kerr.

“It’s a massive event in St Johnstone’s history.

“We were in a really good position when they had the man sent off.

“Looking back, we probably could’ve pushed on but you still need to give Galatasaray respect.

“If we’d gone gung-ho and lost two or three, we would’ve been kicking ourselves.

“I feel like it was a fair result over there in the end and the boys were happy to take it back to a full house at McDiarmid Park.

“We always knew it was going to be a hard draw because we were entering at an advanced round.

“We were going to play against a world class club with a lot of history. We were all buzzing about it.

“They had players that you used to play against on Fifa – the likes of Falcao and Babel.

“We gave it our best shot.”

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