The Thistle Archive

Partick Thistle inside forwards Neil Duffy and Gordon Whitelaw were stars in another sphere of sporting activity before they became professional footballers; they both played basketball with quite a measure of success! Gordon represented his country and was nominated as a member of the British Olympic team for the Rome Games in 1960, but he was not available for the trip. In footballing terms, both would play together at Firhill and at Muirton Park. Gordon had been in the army before joining Thistle in the summer of 1961. Gordon was a regular in the "big freeze" season of 1962-63, during which Thistle were considered as serious challengers for the Scotish flag itself. See 'Scrapbook' tab above. In the end, the excellent 3rd place finish was enough to qualify for an adventure in the Inter Cities Fairs Cup in 1963-64. Gordon spent three full seasons under Willie Thornton, another ex-army man, before signing for Airdrie in August 1963. He represented Scotland amateurs (at football) during the early 1960s, before finally signing on professional terms at Firhill.

In July 1964 Gordon arrived at Muirton Park from Airdrie in a swap deal with Ken Brownlee going in the opposite direction. This was considered a very shrewd piece of business by the then Saints manager, Bobby Brown, who was looking to add some much needed fire power to his forward line. No-one would have thought his career would blossom in the way that it did; after 9 seasons at Perth he became something of a club-legend and was popular with both teammates and fans alike. In total, he made over 200 competitive appearances for the Saints, scoring around 70 goals, enough to place him as one of their highest goalscorers of all-time. In 1971, as mad as it sounds, St Johnstone were called over to Madrid to warm-up the Spanish giants Real for their European Cup Winners’ Cup final with Chelsea. Gordon put them one up in that famous arena, although they lost by 3 goals to 1 in the end. During his Saints career he was a stylish, skillful player, with a good temperament who knew where the goal was. He gave his all for the team wherever he was asked to play and had a positive influence on the careers of many young players. Gordon wound down his playing career with a spell at Second Division Raith Rovers in 1972-73.