With barely 10 minutes remaining in the Tayside derby on Saturday, a visibly harassed sports writer came rushing through the door of the press box at McDiarmid.
He mumbled something about being held up by terrible traffic problems and then asked: ”Have I missed much?”
The replies varied from a terse, ”No”, to ”You must be joking”, and also the frankly unrepeatable.
The managers of both sides may have attempted afterwards to draw the positives out of the game but in truth it was a turgid affair.
Scoring chances were notable by their absence as both sides cancelled one another out, with the game being reduced to a dismal war of attrition.
The first half did at least contain two moments of individual magic.
First, Saints’ on-loan Aberdeen winger Peter Pawlett skinned Barry Douglas before hitting a fierce strike which drew a stunning one-handed save from Radoslaw Cierzniak.
Then later, Stuart Armstrong spun and left Gary Miller for dead before arrowing in on goal but his subsequent driven effort was parried wide by Alan Mannus.
If the first half was a bit of a damp squib, the second was a complete non-event.
Saints sub Nigel Hasselbaink could have secured all three points nine minutes before the end when he found himself one-on-one with Cierzniak but the Polish keeper won that duel, with Rowan Vine skying the rebound high over the bar.
United midfielder Richie Ryan was a little lost for words as he attempted to sum up the game.
He said: ”It wasn’t a glamour tie and there wasn’t much football played but we came away from home and got a point, which is more than we got last week, so we came away happy. The manager asked us to make up for last week and leave with a positive result.”
It may have been a dismal spectacle for the fans but St Johnstone player Vine admitted he is just delighted to be playing regular football after leaving QPR in the summer. And he confessed he has no regrets about choosing to join Saints rather than Rangers in the Third Division.
He said: ”I wanted to play football and enjoy myself. I had offers down south but there was no reason for me to stay in England. And if I’d pursued it there was maybe a chance of something happening at Rangers.
”There was talk of Rangers but it didn’t materialise and I wasn’t that welcoming of it. A conversation took place but I wanted to play at the highest level.
”I’ve got to play as many games at the highest level and if I do that then and get back to where I think I can then there will be a lot of teams interested.
”I’ve made the right decision because I want to play and I’m enjoying my football.”