St Johnstone fans packed out McDiarmid Park to honour Geoff Brown.
But it was the Aberdeen supporters who left the ground celebrating three Premiership points and the start of a new era thanks to a 2-1 win.
The loss of the game was a blow to Perth boss, Craig Levein, but there was an even bigger one with defender, Sam McClelland, suffering what appears to be a ruptured Achilles.
“Sam has ruptured his achilles by the looks of things,” said Levein. “He’s not had much luck at all.
“He could be out for a lengthy period of time, so I feel for him. I know myself what it’s like with injuries, it can be quite a lonely place.
“The game is great until something like this happens.
“I brought Lewis in as another centre back but I didn’t expect to lose one, so we’ll have to see what we do now.”
Avoidable goals
Saints conceded two avoidable goals – one was a set-piece and the other a ball being turned over when they were in possession.
Levein, whose team were pushing for an equaliser late in the contest, saw plenty of reasons for encouragement, however.
“It was a funny game,” he said. “We started well then Aberdeen wrestled control from us until we changed our shape.
“I thought we were good in the second half, the game became really open.
“I enjoyed some of the football we played, there were a lot of good things.
“I was pleased with the performance but not the result.
“As much as there are positives, it’s hard to feel that when we lost the game.
“We tried like hell to get back into it, our energy levels were really good.
“In general we defended pretty well but we lost a goal from a set-piece.
“I have seen progress defensively but we did make some mistakes.
“We also got Nicky Clark on the pitch again so he will add to us and we have Uche Ikpeazu to come back.
“So I think we’ll have a lot of attacking options.”
Saints were first to come close to scoring when on 10 minutes their most reason signing, Lewis Neilson, just missed the far post with a glancing header from a Cammy MacPherson corner.
Aberdeen did find the net moments later but Ester Sokler’s goal was disallowed for offside.
The reprieve didn’t last long, though.
It was near constant Aberdeen pressure (and a couple of golden chances spurned) before the visitors broke the deadlock.
Josh Rae produced a superb save to deny Sokler when he was put through on goal by a ball over the top.
However, from the corner, Nicky Devlin headed home Jamie McGrath’s cross.
Saints finished the half strongly, with Benji Kimpioka’s 25-yard stoppage-time volley narrowly dipping the high side of the crossbar, but a one-goal half-time deficit was as good as they could have hoped for given the way the first period played out.
Bad injury
Levein’s side suffered an early blow early in the second half when McClelland landed awkwardly after challenging Bojan Miovski for a header.
Several minutes passed before the Northern Irishman was stretchered off and replaced by Jack Sanders.
Just as Saints were starting to get a decent share of possession and balls into the box for their two strikers to fight for, they fell two behind not long after the hour mark.
Kyle Cameron turned the ball over on the left side of the pitch and a few crisp passes later, Jamie McGrath was slotting a low shot past Rae.
Ex-Saint, Dimitar Mitov, was eventually called into action to save a shot on 79 minutes, keeping out a Matt Smith effort from the edge of the box at full stretch.
The hosts did pull one back with two minutes left of the 90 – Gavin Molloy putting the ball into his own net from a driven Makenzie Kirk – but Aberdeen saw out the nine minutes of injury time to earn a merited victory.
St Johnstone – Rae, Raymond, Cameron, Neilson, MacPherson (Kirk, 87), Wright, Essel (Carey, 71), Sidibeh, McClelland (Sanders, 52), M Smith, Kimpioka (Clark, 87). Subs not used – Sinclair, C Smith, Sprangler, McPake, Franczak.
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