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Partick Thistle play in Maryhill in Glasgow, not a few miles down the road in Partick as their name suggests. In 1909 they moved from Partick into a new stadium in Maryhill called Firhill. Their first match was on 18th September 1909 when Thistle lost by three goals to one to Dumbarton Harp. Dumbarton scored first, which was a shame as Thistle cannot claim to score the first goal at their new ground. Unfortunately, as the club’s website states:
“It’s an even greater shame that quite a number of the goals scored since then have been by visiting teams as well!”
Thistle’s two greatest achievements have been winning the Scottish Cup in 1921 against Rangers (1-0) and the Scottish League Cup in 1971 against Celtic (4-1). The team from that day included some famous names like ex-Liverpool defender and now BBC pundit Alan Hansen. Hansen famously said of Manchester United’s youthful 1995 side that “you’ll never win anything with kids” only to see those kids win the league and cup double.
Well, just as Alan Hansen was proven wrong with Man United, so his old team, Partick Thistle proved this season that winning with kids is no fluke.
In 2012/13, after a nine-year wait, the Firhill club have been promoted back to the SPL after manager Alan Archibald and his players clinched the First Division title. After winning against Falkirk the Thistle squad celebrated on the pitch while wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Kids v Experience”.
Thistle had been written off in some quarters with questions being raised about how a young squad would cope with a hectic fixture schedule and the pressure being applied by an experienced Morton side. The doubters were proved wrong, their questions answered and Thistle’s dreams of returning to the top flight realised.
Despite this success, Partick Thistle have forever been firmly in the shadow of the Old Firm. This is also a shame, as they pride themselves on offering a non-sectarian full-time alternative to the Glasgow green and blue giants. Yet, despite a stadium in Glasgow’s student friendly Westend, the club has never attracted a large support and has flirted with financial disaster many times. Most notably in 1998 when they were only saved from insolvency by the “Save The Jags” fan led campaign.
It seem appropriate though that Thistle’s two biggest victories should be against the two Glasgow sides that constantly overshadow them. As Thistle sing:
“THERE’S A WELL-KNOWN GLASGOW FOOTBALL TEAM;
THEY DON’T PLAY IN BLUE; THEY DON’T PLAY IN GREEN.”
Which is a nice thought, until you remember that Queens Park also play in Glasgow and Partick Thistle don’t think to even mention them even though Queens have far more trophies than Thistle’s poxy two. Not that Jukebox Durie is bitter. It’s just the FACTS and the FACTS don’t sing songs about two teams and ignore the third!
In 2010, Partick Thistle fan Brian Welsh released a charity single T.H.I.S.T.L.E to generate cash for Partick Thistle’s community initiatives, as earmarked by the Jags Trust, and the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice. As the name suggest the song was inspired by Billy Connolly’s D.I.V.O.R.C.E. after Brian Welsh heard the song while coming home on the bus and started thinking which other seven letter words ending in ‘E’ he could sing about.
As part of the campaign to promote the single Brian Welsh asked a number of celebs and sporting starts to hold a t-shirt in support.
So, while Alan Hansen may be one the most famous players to wear a Thistle shirt, he’s not the best player to ever hold a Thistle shirt. That honour goes to former Valencia and Middlesbrough star, Gaizka Mendieta, whose £40m move to Lazio in 2001 was the then sixth biggest transfer fee of all time.
After appearing on STV’s Sports Centre show in 2010, Mendieta proudly held up a t-shirt featuring the letter T. Despite this unlikely celebrity boost, with less than 1,000 copies sold the single failed to crack the Top 40. However, as Brian said to the unofficial Partick Thistle website TheHarryWraggs.co.uk: “1,000 record sales in a single week is still something I’m very proud of and I’ll probably appreciate the achievement a bit more when I’m older and wiser.”
Unfortunately, for Brian, while you can count on winning things with kids, you can’t count on them to buy a CD single even with the support of a sporting superstar.
Link to charity single ‘T.H.I.S.T.L.E’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtvRo7jDBY4
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About the Author
After too many years as season ticket holder at Parkhead, Andy Todd renounced the SPL three years ago to support Queens Park. One team is a rank bunch of amateurs who play in a state of the art stadium and the other is…(I think we can all see where this is going).
Andy has been performing comedy for 18 months but is currently ‘between gigs’ while he writes a book on Scottish property law to be published in Summer 2012. Its potential audience will be less than 300 but his mum will be very proud.
Follow Andy on Twitter: @toddandy
Check out Andy’s website: www.toddandy.com
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