PERTH fans, disenchanted with their club's troubled start to the campaign, were distracted going into the Clyde game by chairman Geoff Brown's proposals to drive a new road through the north stand at McDiarmid Park.
But Clyde could have driven a coach and horses through a porous Perth defence as they snatched a 70-second advantage and despite mounting a two-goal salvage bid, Saints crashed to their fourth successive defeat.
The troubled pre-season favourites
now find themselves toiling at the wrong end of the table, with 10 goals conceded in their last three league games.
Bully Wee midfielder Dave McKay was given free rein to run unchallenged from inside the home half before sliding a low shot beyond exposed keeper Alan Main for the opener.
But the Perth defence was culpable again when Scott Gemmell rose unchallenged to flash home a 37th-minute Ricky Waddle corner kick.
Two minutes from the interval Saints reduced the deficit when defender Stuart McCaffrey inched a half-hit connection over the line after latching on to a Nick McKoy knockdown into the six-yard box.
Paul Sheerin and Derek Holmes were interval substitutes and the duo combined to craft a 67th-minute equaliser, with Holmes heading home the veteran midfielder's hanging cross.
But 10 minutes from the end, a needlessly conceded free-kick set-up Waddle for a ferocious 22-yard strike to secure Clyde's first win of the season.
The full article contains 243 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
