The Thistle Archive

Media report

BEST ACTORS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE - NOISY JAGS FANS ARE AYR TODAY GONE TOMORROW. THEY crawled out of the woodwork in their thousands and they watched Partick Thistle creep out of the Tennents Scottish Cup. Times must be changing at Firhill. Just a little more often than an eclipse, you can be guaranteed that four or five thousand Jags fans will suddenly appear out of nowhere. In recent years it has usually been to attend a match billed as the club's last as another Save the Jags campaign is launched. But on Saturday at Somerset Park they turned out in their thousands to see their occasional team reach a stage of the Scottish Cup they haven't made for 10 years and aim for the semi-finals. Unfortunately for them, it was Ayr who made it through to the last four for the first time in 27 years. Time to fold away the scarf for another three or four years then - but not without a bit of a sense of injustice.

Okay, Thistle never looked capable of scoring a goal against an Ayr defence superbly organised by Neil Duffy but Jags fans will be able to moan about this one for years to come. They had the better of the game until Duffy put Ayr ahead with a goal that took too little effort to score. A corner from the right led to mayhem in the Thistle penalty area and when Danny Lennon cleared the ball from the line it hit Duffy and rebounded into the net. The Thistle defence muttered afterwards about a hand being used before the ball got to Lennon but their protests seemed muted by the comedy moment which actually saw it go in.

Having been the better side for the first half, Thistle were out of the cup just four minutes into the second. A long punt forward from that man Duffy was allowed to bounce through to Neil Tarrant, who rifled the ball into the net with a superb volley from 10 yards. It was such a good strike that it would have been rotten to point out that Tarrant was a couple of yards offside. The neatly turned out linesman on the stand side - a man who will please home fans wherever he goes - certainly wasn't going to spoil the moment. But it meant that just like Ayr, Tarrant's remarkable cup run of spectacular goals continues. The striker from Aston Villa has had his loan period extended to the end of the season and that means he could even stay at Somerset for the cup final itself. Tarrant said: “It was a great ball through from Duffy, who was outstanding today and obviously I just hit it first time. I don't know if I was offside - I just made the run. It was nice to get another good goal and get the lads through to the semi-final.” And that was that. Despite what the Ayr fans sang you could still hear the Thistle supporters above them but the tie was over. Ayr had a rush of blood to the head for 15 minutes after their goal and Tarrant was unlucky not to make it 3-0 when his header came back off the bar. The entertainment was pretty much kept to a minimum but if anybody made this match an occasion it was the fans on either side.

It seems Ayr can raise their game to defeat Premier League teams such as Motherwell and Dundee and they can lower it suitably when they are playing a team from a division below. Games against the likes of Thistle might have been a little lower than where Tarrant's sights were set at the start of the season but thanks to the magic of the cup this loan period has been a highlight in the career of the Scotland Under-21 player. Tarrant said: “It was good for Villa to let me stay up here. I know John Gregory has been speaking to Gordon Dalziel on a weekly basis and a few of the lads down there have been saying they saw my goals on TV. They haven't let me come up here and just left me. They are keeping tabs on me. I am up here to get experience and that will be good for me but it's turning out to be brilliant. If I keep doing well I hope that Alex Smith will pick me again for the Under-21s.” Tarrant is not the only one whose career has been given a lift by this run. After doing so well in last year's league campaign, Ayr manager Dalziel spent money in the summer but the team didn't seem to improve. They have been nowhere in the promotion race and with Ayr chairman Bill Barr reported to be having dinner with all sorts of out-of-work managers it looked like Dalziel's job might be under threat. But three great cup results later and the manager is back to hero status. Not that he won't get the elbow from Barr. He could get it very easily because the Ayr chief now stands in the dugout for cup ties. He's apparently a lucky mascot. Somerset striker Glynn Hurst said: “I think that is like a lucky omen now. He started it against Dundee and now the players will be begging him to go in the dugout for the semi-final. The players have a lot to thank him for. Half of us wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Bill Barr. He looks after the players very well. When a chairman backs his manager he's usually about to sack him. When a player praises his chairman for being generous you can be sure he's looking for a cup bonus. But the dream goes on for Ayr. They can look forward to at least one more grand day out and having beaten two Premier League teams to get to the quarter-finals it would have been perverse if they had gone out to a team from a league below them.”

Thistle, to their credit, didn't complain about a thing. Boss John Lambie admitted there might have been a hand used in Ayr's first goal but for the second he was more disappointed that Tarrant wasn't picked up by one of his defenders. Like Ayr, his side tried to play football and one thing they don't lack is experience. With Albert Craig, Ray Montgomerie and Brian Martin in the side, the youth policy at Firhill is being edged out but the Queens Cross Elderly Forum is doing just fine. Lambie said: “All credit to Ayr. They are in the next round and I hope they go on and win it - I really do. As for us, I'll try and freshen things up and we can go for promotion. We only played in patches but I can't criticise the players for lack of effort.” On Saturday's performance, Thistle wouldn't look out of place in the First Division. Maybe if they get promotion some of their fans will break the habit of a lifetime and go to two games in the one season. Ayr, on the other hand, are gaining supporters by the day.

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