David Wotherspoon, Stevie May and Michael O’Halloran share the accolade of being the only three St Johnstone players to have won a hat-trick of cups with the Perth club.
Wotherspoon, though, is on his own in having been a starter in the final victories over Dundee United, Livingston and Hibs.
It was his corner which set-up Steven Anderson’s back post header in 2014 and his skill and cross that did the same for Shaun Rooney to secure the last of the three trophies.
Wotherspoon will already be regarded by some as the greatest ever Saint.
After 10 months injured, the 32-year-old returned to Callum Davidson’s first team squad in the midweek loss to Kilmarnock.
Courier Sport asks four big questions ahead of a much-anticipated comeback.
How big a loss has Wotherspoon been to St Johnstone?
It’s impossible to quantify whether the departures of Ali McCann and Jason Kerr or the season-ending injury for Wotherspoon had the greatest impact on Saints collapsing from lifting two cups and finishing fourth in the league to losing 10 games in a row and only just clinging on to their Premiership status.
Put to the vote, it would be no easy choice.
What is beyond dispute is that Saints’ inability to hold onto the ball in the final third, get their attackers into play in and around the box and come up individual excellence to beat a man were fundamental to their near catastrophic demise.
No player was more important creatively to the double-winning season than Wotherspoon.
Spoony Chop https://t.co/iOaquAggJK pic.twitter.com/APihdQGoHm
— ChopMaster 🇨🇦 (@SpoonyChop) August 19, 2022
His form was as much miss than hit in the first few months of 2021/22 but he looked close to his best at Hampden before the campaign-ending knee injury against Celtic was sustained.
Ali Crawford was the nearest thing to a like for like replacement but, despite scoring a couple of crucial goals, neither he nor anybody else at McDiarmid Park came close to filling the Wotherspoon-shaped hole effectively as results fell off a cliff.
That hole hasn’t been anywhere near as cavernous this season but, with Graham Carey out of action, it’s a good time for him to be retuning.
When is he likely to make his first start?
Davidson hasn’t rushed Wotherspoon back.
The Perth boss has made sure no corners were cut and every phase of his journey from the operating theatre to the football pitch has been given the attention it deserved.
After playing one closed-doors match, a bit of another and injuring his foot in the latter, Wotherspoon is now at the stage where competitive game-time is the last box to be ticked.
Given the number of positions he can cover – and his ability to transform a contest with a flash of individual brilliance – his appearance on the bench at Rugby Park was no surprise.
There’s little to no chance he’ll start on Saturday against Celtic and Livingston’s artificial surface wouldn’t be the ideal first game back pitch for a player who has had his knee operated on, though minutes from the bench are a possibility.
Friday night football at Easter Road on October 21 could be the first realistic opportunity for him to start a game.
What will be his main position in the team?
Like Melker Hallberg and Carey, Wotherspoon’s versatility will no doubt see him play a few different positions over the course of the season, as has been the case throughout his time at McDiarmid.
If we work on the basis that Davidson will persevere with a similar formation to the one that has brought Saints seven points from their last three games, Wotherspoon’s most natural role would appear to be the one filled by Jamie Murphy at the moment.
It’s effectively a number 10, with licence to pick up spaces across the pitch, as his Opta average position map against St Mirren and touch map against Ross County highlight.
Wotherspoon brings a slightly different skillset to the position than Murphy but is equally well-suited to the job of half-midfielder/half-forward.
The two men also appear interchangeable on the left should Davidson revert to a lone striker.
Has he got enough time to make the World Cup squad?
Canada’s head coach John Herdman hasn’t gone into specifics with Wotherspoon about how many games he would need to play and what he’s looking to see from him before he finalises his squad for Qatar.
You suspect the Saints legend, part of the Canadian set-up for four years, is one of the players Herdman had in mind when he said there were a few things “keeping me up at night”.
Missing out on the last squad before the World Cup was far from ideal.
A pool of 27 was named for friendlies against Qatar and Uruguay and there will only be 26 golden tickets handed out in November.
For some Canadian players, their last club match will be this weekend.
Also, he’s not alone in having to prove both fitness and form.
I like those news. Spoony was low key really good in the games he suited up for #CanMNT. Hopefully he’ll have time to find his footing and fitness before Qatar. https://t.co/DVPagr9pjq
— Pascal Pelletier (@Shovelthird) September 23, 2022
Wotherspoon has a maximum of eight games to convince Herdman of the merits of his selection.
In reality it will be less than that.
It’s the five-match run from Hibs through to Motherwell that will probably determine whether it’s a career high ‘yes’ or a crushing ‘no’.
And if there’s one match in particular you could choose for Wotherspoon to start and star in, it would be the live TV clash with Rangers in the middle of that spell.
The pressure is big and the stakes high stakes.
But those circumstances have brought out the best in Wotherspoon. They could yet do so again.
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