The Thistle Archive

Media report

FIRHILL FANS FULL OF THE SPIRIT OF GOODWILL. TRADITIONALLY, it is football's quietest afternoon of the year. For creatures of habit, the last Saturday before Christmas casts up all manner of duties and dilemmas designed to threaten the weekly ritual. It's that time of year when what to get old Aunt Gladys puts everything else into stark perspective. Thankfully, for the money men at Maryhill, Glasgow's West End Gladyses had been wrapped and tagged for weeks, as an impressive 2,141 felt no need for last-minute shopping. “A team such as ours deserves more success on the park,” was the theme of the Christmas message from the Jags' chairman, Brown McMaster. In this season of goodwill to all fans, it also seems a time for contrition. As McMaster candidly confessed in the club's programme: “The board of directors know there are a number of things at this club which are still not right, but we are working on them and with your {the fans} continued support we will get there in the end.” As every supporter and director knows, the best way of getting there is through success on the pitch, a path which, for most of this season, the Jags have found difficult to follow.

Going into Saturday's game with promotion contenders Inverness Caledonian Thistle, the omens were hardly good. Fair enough, there was that incredible eight-man Scottish Cup win two weeks back at Arbroath to perk up the spirits, but a disastrous league run of seven matches without a win had taken its toll, with Partick plunging out of the promotion race and heading inexorably towards the depths of the Second Division table. However, on Saturday the despair of recent weeks was banished as the Jags lifted themselves to one of their best performances, proving they still possess some admirable fighting qualities. “I was very pleased, especially against a team second in the league,” enthused the Partick Thistle manager, Tommy Bryce. “It was nail-biting towards the end, but these two terrific goals were worthy of winning any game.” The first arrived on the quarter hour and marked Paul Tosh's first league goal for the Glasgow club. A poor Highland clearance from the Inverness goalkeeper, Jim Calder, was headed back upfield by Des McKeown, where Tosh - his loan period from Hibs recently extended for another month - ran on to execute the perfect lob. The second, four minutes later, was as simple and just as clinical. A Jamie McKenzie inswinging corner caused all sorts of mayhem for the visiting defence, and Graham Connell latched on to the half-clearance to thump a volley past Calder from the edge of the penalty area. Twenty minutes into the second period, Caley staged something of a revival and hauled themselves back into the match from the penalty spot when Partick's central defender, Willie Jamieson, was adjudged, quite harshly by all accounts, to have impeded Barry Wilson. Wilson recovered sufficiently to convert the spot kick. Inspired by this breakthrough, and with the backing of a sizeable travelling support, Caley piled on the pressure, but this encounter between the two Thistles - incidentally, only the second match of its sort in the history of the Scottish League -failed to produce a sting in the tail.

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