The Thistle Archive

The son of James Milliken (b. Ireland) and Janet Milliken (b. Campsie, née Crooks) who were married in 1863 in Blythswood, Glasgow. Although his father was born Milliken, Andrew was listed between Millikin and Milliken in both official documents and press reports. He's a Millikin in the birth registry and Milliken in the death registry, and we've settled on the latter. In 1887, he married Jessie McMillan in Partick, and worked as an iron caulker on the ships. Their first-born children were James (b. 1887) and Thomas (b. 1888) who did not survive for long. Thomas (b. 1889) and Janet (b. 1890) no doubt helped with the grieving process, initially at least. Perhaps work took him down south for a year, for Janet was English-born. Tragedy followed however when 4-year-old Janet died in 1894 and 8-year-old Thomas died in 1896. In 1900, his wife, Jessie, died aged 35. It was a tough old world in Old Partick.

As far as we know, Andrew's time as a footballer was confined to Partick Thistle, certainly at any meaningful level. His activity was spread over 4 campaigns, his main season being 1886-87 when he made 30 appearances for the club. A great highlight in Andrew's Thistle days was clearly the action-packed run to the last 16 of the FA Cup that season. Andrew featured in all four of the matches. Thistle took a great scalp in the first round when they defeated Blackburn Olympic - the first Northeners ever to win the FA Cup in 1883 - by 3 goals to 1 at their Hole-i'-th-Wall ground. That was followed by a 7-0 win at home to Fleetwood Rangers, an amazing 11-1 win away to Cliftonville, followed by the crushing disappointment of a brave 0-1 loss to Old Westminsters in London, in the last 16. The season ended with a 3 game run to the Greenock Charity Cup final, but it ended in silver only at Cappielow, Morton winning the cup by 5 goals to 2. Andrew's appearances fell to 15 over the following two seasons, which included Thistle's first-ever fixture with Celtic in August 1888.

We don’t know how this man coped, and seeing his end, we don’t think he did, however we'd forgive him anything. He ended his days at Barnhill Hospital which was really Barnhill Poorhouse with a hospital wing. His funeral and lair was paid for by his sister, the wonderfully named Mary Morning, god bless her. We couldn’t help but follow what happened to the angel Mary. She passed away aged 66 in 1933 at Partick. She had seven kids, three who died before age of five in Partick, add that to Andrew’s loss around the same time and it's truly horrendous for the family. Mercifully, four of Mary’s children lived to grand ages. In 1916, poor Andrew passed away aged 52, and was laid to rest at Craigton Cemetery in the south-west of Glasgow.