Dougie Wright
Dougie Wright
Dougie Wright
● Dougie Wright (SD)

probably born in Scotland

Douglas Rennie Wright was born on Tuesday, 4th March, 1941, in Govan, Glasgow.

The defender signed for Willie Thornton's Thistle on Saturday, 28th November, 1959, having most recently been with Blantyre Celtic.

Aged 19, he made his debut appearance on Saturday, 4th February, 1961, in a 4-1 win at home to Heart of Midlothian in the SFL First Division.

That day, Dougie became a member of our scoring debutant's club.

He scored the last of his 3 goals on Monday, 16th September, 1963, in a 4-1 win away to Glentoran in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

He played his last game for the club on Saturday, 21st September, 1963, in a 4-1 defeat away to Heart of Midlothian in the SFL First Division, having appeared as a Jag on 9 occasions.

Dougie's club-list included Blantyre Celtic and Partick Thistle.

Bio Extra

Dougie came through in the juniors with Blantyre Celtic and spent 5 seasons with Thistle from 1959-60 onwards, albeit his activity was largely confined to reserve team business. Left full back was his preferred position, although he could easily play on the right. Similarly, he could also play on either wing if required. He played in all 4 of these positions in his interesting, if sparse, 9 games in 30 months first-team span.

Esteemed Thistle historian, Robert Reid, in one of his 'Blast from the past' entries, wrote about Dougie's debut against Hearts (a 4-1 home League win in February 1961): "The Thistle team on the day featured in goal the unpredictable John Freebairn; who like the wee boy we all know was very good when he was good but at other times less so. The full backs were Joe Hogan; who doubled as a centre forward would you believe, and Sandy Brown, who later transferred to Everton where he was a huge success. The half back line featured Alex Wright, John Harvey and Frank Donlevy. At outside right was Dougie Wright, whose partner was Billy Cunningham. Spearheading the attack was the prolific Joe McBride, and we had a famous left wing of Neil Duffy and Thistle legend David McParland. Goalscorers on the day were Dougie Wright, Joe McBride, and Neil Duffy who scored twice. All in all, it was a good team performance and great result."

Dougie turned out once more in that first season, featuring in the 7-1 friendly win at East Stirlingshire, played under the glare of the new Firs Park floodlights on a Thursday evening affair in March. There was a hat-trick for Neil Duffy and a haul of four for Joe McBride that night as Dougie was back in his familiar left-back role.

He got a run-out in two of the League Cup section games at the start of 1961-62, playing on the left wing in a 2-1 defeat to Hibs at Easter Road and back at left-back for a 4-3 defeat to St Johnstone at Muirton Park. There were only 2 further appearances for Dougie that season, playing as full-back in a 2-0 home League win over Stirling Albion in November and in 3-1 friendly win away to Morton in April.

A year-and-a-half passed before Dougie got the nod for action in September 1963 when he played in his final 3 first team games. League defeats away to Third Lanark (2-3) and Hearts (1-4) sandwiched an historic night in Belfast as Thistle played their first-ever game in European competition. Glentoran were the opponents and The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup 1st Round, 1st leg match was won by Thistle by 4 goals to 1. It was certainly an eventful night for Dougie who had started at right back, but got injured and, in the days before substitutions, was put out to the right wing where he'd be least likely to cause damage. Quite the opposite was true in the 78th minute when he brought a cross from the left wing under control before firing the ball into the roof of the net to put the final seal on Thistle's history-making win. It was a great memory for Dougie to make, but he would be freed 5 months later, in February 1964.

Friend of the Archive Drew Herbertson (longstanding now retired referee administrator at the SFA) just happens to play golf with Dougie and, early in March 2024, was able to assist in plugging the gap for our missing date of birth. Dougie always speaks very fondly of having played for Thistle. He had great times at Firhill where he had many friends, and was great pals with Billy Hainey in particular. He also speaks very highly of Willie Thornton - “a real gentleman”, he says. We were all chuffed to receive this info on our European goalscorer, and delighted to hear that he's still game and pursuing the sports!

(WS)



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