Boss David Martindale says it would be a phenomenal achievement to take Livingston to their first Scottish Cup semi-final in 21 years. With a quarter-final tie against Premiership strugglers St Johnstone on Monday night, Martindale hopes the prospect of a return to Hampden will inspire his Lions. You have to go back to April 2004 for Livi’s last Scottish Cup semi-final tie, when a Celtic side containing Henrik Larsson and Chris Sutton knocked the Lions out in a 3-1 win. Livingston have made more frequent trips to Hampden in the League Cup, reaching the final in 2020/21 under Martindale and winning the competition in 2004 with Davie Hay as manager. And Martindale told West Lothian Courier : “I didn’t realise it’s been 21 years. I have been there [Hampden] twice before with the club in terms of the League Cup, so to get there in terms of the Scottish Cup for the first time in a long while would be absolutely phenomenal for everyone at the club. “There would obviously be great financial implications in doing that as well so we are really looking forward to it. “We are one game from Hampden so that’s a big incentive. Everybody wants to play at the national stadium in semi-finals and finals. “But we have still got very formidable opponents in front of us that we need to try and beat. “I remember last season in the Scottish Cup quarter-finals against Celtic we got the game back to 2-2 with a few minutes to go and still lost the game 4-2. “We’ve come close to taking the team back to Hampden before, so we would love to go a step further.” The Saints side standing in Livingston’s way has been reinvigorated under new boss Simo Valakari, who has helped mount a great escape bid at the bottom of the Premiership and reduced the deficit to three points. The Perth side struggled against Livi’s Championship rivals Hamilton Accies in the last round, needing an 87th minute winner in a 1-0 success, but Martindale says Saints are much improved since then. On their opponents, he said: “St Johnstone have improved week on week. The longer Simo has had to work with them the better they have got and he has brought some players in since the Hamilton game as well, so I don’t think I can use the Hamilton game as much of a barometer. “They are much improved from where they were a few weeks ago. Simo has now got his ideas over. You can see he has changed their style and how he wants them to play is more about ball possession and dominating the ball. “Mackenzie Kirk has done extremely well for them as well so they’ve got a formidable strike force. They have boys at the top of the park that can change games. “Simo is playing his style and it is a lot different to what St Johnstone teams of the past have been like. It is a lot more ball orientated so it is going to be a different kind of St Johnstone team to the one we were used to playing in the Premiership. “But I do think we’ve got a good chance to progress to a semi-final — and St Johnstone will be thinking the same thing. That should lend itself to being a good game of football.”