Older Saints fans will be saddened to learn of the death of 1960's goalkeeper Campbell Forsyth who played 51 times for the club before injury ended his career .
Campbell Forsyth was signed by Saints from Kilmarnock in December 1965 and it was his former club who have announced his death with a tribute on their website.
They have not mentioned the circumstances behind his death.
He joined Saints then pushing for promotion to the top flight for £10,000 on the back of being in the Kilmarnock Scottish League winning team of the previous season and also making his Scotland debut the previous year in a 1-0 win over the Auld enemy England.
He was straight into the first team and was then ever present to the end of the season when Saints won promotion to the top flight.
But after starting the club's first ever season in the top flight and in fine form, disaster struck, in the 8th game of the season Liverpool came to The Dell in September 1966. In a pile-up with Denis Hollywood and the visitor’s Ian Callaghan, Campbell broke his leg, he was stretchered off not knowing that he had played 30 of the 48 League appearances he would eventually make for the club.
By the end of the season Saints had signed initially signed Dave McClaren from Wolves as a short term replacement, had the 20 year old Gerry Gurr chomping at the bit and then signed Eric Martin who ended the season as the number one.
In 1967/68 Forsyth appeared to have regained the green jersey from Martin, but it was clear that his confidence was shattered.
On his excellent website https://www.saintsplayers.co.uk/ Duncan Holley has this to say about Campbell.
"He was out for the season and would have to compete for his place, in 1967-68, with Bates’s latest goalkeeping hope from Scotland, Eric Martin. Campbell got his place back — in two spells, the first of which ended in a 5-1 home defeat by Leicester City.
The visitors’ fifth goal was scored by Peter Shilton, whose long clearance bounced and flew over a stranded Forsyth. Campbell blamed the way the groundsman, Len Stansbridge, hand-painted his pitch-markings. But his defence that the ball hit one of Stansbridge’s "hard-baked, painted lines and it shot” is not borne out by the video evidence or by Shilton’s own verdict — that it was "just a complete fluke”.
However you explain it, it did not help Campbell’s rehabilitation. His "confidence was shattered” and, after another short burst of appearances, he quit the game. Watneys employed him as their Edinburgh representative for 28 years and he scouted for Bates in Scotland. Three of his recommendations — Jim Steele, Gerry O’Brien and Ally MacLeod — would play first-team football for the Saints."
A sad ending for a goalkeeper who looked to have a glittering career ahead of him at 26 but by 28 when he was coming into his prime his career was over.
Im sure that all Saints fans send their condolences to Campbell Forsyth's family in Scotland.