"Sleep, what is that," jokes St Mirren chief operating officer Keith Lasley as he reflects on a demanding first few months of the season.

Just two years into his time in Paisley, Lasley faced the gargantuan task of leading the club into European competition for the first time in 37 years, admittedly something for which the club was not yet prepared.

Despite the long nights and early rises - and the small matter of chartering a jet to Norway and Iceland in summer season - Lasley knows the impact that European football will have on the club, and more importantly the people within the club and lifetime supporters.

"If anybody wants to try and organise a charter jet at the end of July...go and try that, it's a good laugh given everybody is in Benidorm and wherever," said Lasley.

"It was an experience. For me personally, and for the staff, it was all new. If or when we get that opportunity again we will be better set.

"It was long days, it was relentless days, there were no days off. You were just at it.

"But again, when you are in it you want to take a breath but then when you are out of it you are wishing it's still going.

"When I do, or we as a staff, get the chance to really sit back, we'll probably look each other in the eye and say, 'That was amazing'. You don't get the chance when you are in it.

"What a feeling against Brann when we equalised or here when we played Valur and Brann in the stadium with it the way it looked.

"The stadium here, the look and feel of it, that's what we are all doing it for.

"That's football staff, non-football staff all the stuff we've spoken about, that's why we do it.

"That's why we come to work every day to try and achieve those moments so as much as possible we have got to try and enjoy it when they do come."

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Stephen Robinson previously suggested St Mirren were not yet equipped to be a European side with qualification coming ahead of schedule in Paisley.

Lasley agrees that growth as a club will take time but, while warning of inevitable bumps in the road, is hellbent on further success against the odds in Scotland and beyond.

He said: "As always with these things, in football you don't get time to sit and get a couple of pats on the back, it's about the next thing.

"It's the relentless nature of the beast sort of thing, which is fine. It's great and it's where we want to be.

"I think there has been a lot of progress in the last few years both on and off the pitch. I'm saying that as a mark of respect to the staff here, both on and off the pitch because I think they buy into the vision that we are trying to grow the club.

"Although we have probably grown it more than incrementally, that growth over time is going to be incremental.

"We don't have the capacity to go from nought to 100 overnight but what we do is try to grow where we can and with the resource that we do have to try and make a season like last season more normal than not.

"We want to be more stable, we want to be in the Scottish Premiership for the forseeable and challenge for that top six, but that's tough.

"Are we competing against clubs with far greater resources and far greater stuff and fear greater everything, yeah. But that's the challenge and there's an excitement in that.

"There's an excitement when we do achieve like last year and say, 'Oof, what an achievement' because we have overcome all of those obstacles.

"There will be bumps. There will be periods where - again the nature of the industry we are in - everything I have just said doesn't guarantee a linear progression, it just doesn't given those parameters that we operate under.

"Our internal staff, our stakeholders, fans everybody connected with St Mirren Football Club, I think if we can give them as compelling and consistent a vision then hopefully they will stick with us when we have those moments and they will be right behind us when we get to those moments like last year."