Alex Smith: St Mirren passed on signing Ossie Ardiles

Ossie Ardiles in action for Tottenham Hotspur. Pic: by Simon Bruty/Getty Images

Former St Mirren manager Alex Smith, who led the Buddies to the cup success, revealed the link to the then Tottenham Hotspur player on BBC Sportsound.

Smith was wanting to take the Paisley side to the next level after defeating Dundee United in the ‘87 final. With young talent emerging at Love Street he believed the club could reach the heights of Dundee United and Aberdeen.

Yet, the success worked the other way with clubs interested in cherry-picking the best St Mirren had to offer, including Ian Ferguson who had netted the winner in the final.

“We felt it (the Scottish Cup win) was the catalyst for St Mirren,” Smith told BBC, “the catalyst to take the club forward. Maybe we wanted to rush it too much but we wanted to go from the team that just won the Scottish Cup and become a team like Dundee United. St Mirren had been up there several times in the build up to that season. To get them there and keep there, in order to do that we had to try and bring in special players.

“We had our own special players who were getting sought after which caused us a problem. We were in the middle of selling Ian Ferguson who was attracting so much attention. Rangers were desperate to sign him. Terry Venables came back from Barcelona, took over Spurs and he was wanting to get the best young players in the UK at the time.

“Venables came in for Ian talking about offering a certain amount of money and then when Spurs came on the scene Sir Alex (Ferguson) came on the scene because he had Ian at Aberdeen and knew about the boy’s ability. He was wanting to take him to Manchester United. We had a group of big clubs wanting (Ian).”

That is when Spurs proposed the enticing offer for St Mirren, and the possibility of Ardiles swapping London for Loch Lomond, a decade on from lifting the World Cup in his native Argentina.

Yet, a parochial board prevented any deal progressing further.

“Spurs came out with a special one for us,” explained Smith. “They offered £600,000 but also offered (Ossie) Ardiles who was 32-year-old in exchange or Nico Claesen who was a Belgian international striker in exchange plus the £600,000. We discussed that at board level and the board didn’t agree to bring in foreign players to the club. They changed the policy a year or two later.

“At that particular occasion we had a chance to bring in Ardiles and it could be done financially because we could get him the quality of house that he was staying in London somewhere beside Loch Lomond.

“In that team that won the cup we had three 19 year olds and a 17-year-old who were very, very good players and to take that club the next step to bring a player like Ardiles to Love Street would have filled the place for the rest of the season.

“That was a major disappointment.”

Ferguson, who had his heart set on a move to Rangers eventually got his wish and joined his boyhood heroes for £850,000, while Ardiles moved on to Blackburn Rovers.