Peter MacDonald

One of the most natural goalscorers on the books at McDiarmid Park, ‘Peaso’ joined the club in August 2001 when, having received a substantial fee from Celtic for Momo Sylla, manager Sandy Clark was able to pay a fee of £125,000 to Rangers for his services.

Top scorer for the Ibrox Under 21 side the previous season, Peter set about getting goals at a first team level with Saints and made a promising start when he scored in a 2-2 home draw against Livingston in just his second starting appearance. However, appearances from the bench were more common than a place in the starting line-up that season and although he featured in over two thirds of the league games that season he scored only two more goals.

Sadly, lengthy spells out through injury have been a feature of Peter’s time with Saints, the first of those came between September 2002 and March 2003 and again the following season when a foot injury meant that he took part in only 19 games.

That injury meant that he did not feature until September 2004 when he was listed for a place on the bench against Falkirk. However a warm-up injury sustained by Chris Hay meant that 'Peaso' was called into the starting eleven and unexpectedly played the full 90 minutes! He didn't score in that game but the following week he scored two goals in the last six minutes to help Saints to a 2-1 win over Partick Thistale after coming on as a substitute.

Despite his injury troubles he was awarded a three year contract extension in February 2005 which will take him through to the summer of 2008.

A knock picked up in the summer 05 pre-season meant that he didn't feature in many pre-season matches but he came off the bench in the second competitive match of the season, the 4-0 win over QOS.

A long period of absence followed and it was February 11th before he featured again, getting the final 9 minutes against St Mirren but injury aain intervened and the end of 2005/2006 saw him post a league appearance tally of just 2 starts and seven appearances from the bench.

'Peaso' worked hard over the summer of 2006 in the hope that 2006/2007 would be the season that he could finally put his injury troubles behind him.

Although used predominantly as a substitute an injury to Steven Milne saw 'Peaso' getting some starting places as 2006 turned to 2007 and he scored the match winning goal in the Scottish Cup 3rd round replay with Ayr United.

Remarkably, by the end of the season, he had achieved the feat of taking part in every single competitive match through the extensive league and cup campaign and he has played regularly during 07/08 under first Owen Coyle and now Derek McInnes.

LEAGUE RECORD

St Johnstone
2001/2002 12 (16) 3
2002/2003 9 4) 4
2003/2004 11 (4) 8
2004/2005 26 (1) 11
2005/2006 2 (7) 2
2006/2007 19 (17) 5
2007/2008 21 (10) 5

Peter's home jersey is kindly sponsored by Ed Strang Steel and his away jersey is kindly sponsored by Bannerman Decorators.

Player Sponsorship costs £275 for the season. For further information please contact Paul Smith on 01738 459099