Stephen Robinson ‘humbled’ by Sir Alex Ferguson text after St Mirren’s cup win

Robinson is being lauded by fans as St Mirren’s greatest manager after clinching their fifth piece of major silverware on top of three consecutive top-six league finishes and ending a 37-year absence from European football.

Ferguson led the Buddies to the First Division title in 1977 with an exciting young team and made contact with Robinson after the club’s 3-1 Hampden triumph over Celtic last Sunday.

“I thought somebody was winding me up, but Sir Alex sent me a message, which I couldn’t believe,” said Robinson, whose side host Livingston in the William Hill Premiership on Saturday.

“Actually, my boy was in the next room and I was shouting: ‘Son, are you sending me messages, messing about?’ But, no, Sir Alex sent me a brilliant message. So from a legend in the game like that, I was extremely humbled.

“Eddie Howe, Brendan Rodgers, to name but a few, there was quite a few messages, which is fantastic.

“I’m humbled when you get that level of manager text you ‘well done’.

“Somebody that’s got that stature in the game and done what Sir Alex has done, I keep using the word humble because I’m just a wee guy from Northern Ireland that is doing the job to the best of his ability, so to get recognised by people like that is amazing.

“But that’s for the history books now. The present is we need points on the board, we need to win football matches, which we’ve started to do, and we have to play to the best of our ability.

“I can look back on that and we can all be very, very proud of that achievement, but I’m one that moves on very quickly.

“Our focus on Monday morning was how we beat Livingston.”

The former Motherwell manager stressed he had to concentrate on the next challenge rather than relax after his latest achievement.

“I don’t think you can do because once you start believing you’re a really good side, you forget the things that made you good,” he said.

“Even when we weren’t winning games in that run, we worked very, very hard. We played some really, really good football, we were very organised.

“When you think you don’t need to do that same level of organisation or running or closing down, then football bites you on the bum very quickly.

“I’m determined to not let that happen because the narrative changes very, very quickly.

“You know, six weeks ago we were a really poor team. Then we got a couple of wins, we were decent. Then we win the cup, we’re brilliant. I don’t think we’re any of those.

“I think we’re a team constantly improving, constantly working to stay in this division with our resources, and trying to take the club forward as a whole, as a base to leave a foundation at this football club that wasn’t here previously.”

Even since Sunday Robinson has been hit with a major blow.

“We’ve had really bad news about Keanu Baccus,” he said. “He’s had a hamstring tendon injury, so he could be out up to the guts of three months, at least eight to 10 weeks. So that’s a real blow for us.

“He’ll see the specialist. Hopefully it doesn’t require surgery.”