THREE years ago David Barron was claiming unemployment benefit to make ends meet and wondering whether he still had a future in football after being released by Partick Thistle. Now the 20-year-old is determined to take Scottish football by storm aft
er bagging his first senior goal for St Mirren.
The Scottish Cup fourth-round tie against Third Division Dumbarton was only Barron's third appearance for the first team but he marked the occasion with a classy goal as Saints eased through to a home tie against Clyde or Dundee United.
For midfielder Barron, it was a far cry from the days when he feared he would be left on the football scrapheap.
"I signed for Partick when I left school and I was there for two years and then I got released," he recalled.
"I signed on for a few weeks just to get money because I didn't know how to get by. It was just fortunate that I was still living with my mum.
"I was waiting for a chance and I sent a CV to a few other clubs. My friend knew the youth manager here, Davie Longwell, and he put a word in for me and I came on trial.
"It feels great now and it proves a point that maybe it was a bad thing for Dick Campbell to let me go."
He added: "I appreciate it a lot here. I don't think a lot of the young guys who play nowadays realise how bad it is when you get released. They take things for granted."
Barron has spent the last three years at Love Street coming through the ranks before forcing his way into Gus MacPherson's first team plans this term.
He added: "I have a one-year deal which is up in the summer. I just want to take my chance and hopefully talks will come later on.
"I was injured a lot last year and had two operations and that hampered things a bit. I was just happy to get a one-year contract extension to show what I can do."
Mark Corcoran opened the scoring for Saints before Barron struck with a thunderous 25-yard effort just before the break and any hope of a Dumbarton comeback was killed off when Billy Mehmet netted with 20 minutes to go.
The fourth-round tie was Dumbarton manager Jim Chapman's second game since taking over the helm on New Year's Eve and he had no complaints about his team's effort.
However, The Sons are languishing second bottom of the table and Chapman warned that results must improve over the coming weeks. He said:
"We will try to strengthen before the end of the window but we have a big squad of 26 players and we need to ask why we are not achieving."
Referee: A Muir
Attendance: 2,814
The full article contains 495 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
