The Thistle Archive

Peter featured at #16 in our Top 25 countdown here on The Thistle Archive →

03.01.1938 Rangers [a] W3-1 (SFL First Division - game 21)
John Wallace (1-0, 37 mins); Peter McKennan (2-0, pen 57 mins); David Alston (3-0, 61 mins)

Ma Ba’ McKennan, a dazzling inside forward, was a true darling of the Firhill faithful who, with one dip of the shoulder, could send an entire backline the wrong way and, as the auld boys of Maryhill would say, “could beat three men on a tanner”. These skills, together with the bullet-shot in his armoury, combined to make him an opponent to be feared by any club, statistically verifiable by his final tally of 114 goals which, considering there were 13 clubs on his CV, was highly impressive. He was in his Thistle prime in the pre-war years of the 1930s, emerging as a teenage sensation by bagging multiple goals against both halves of the Old Firm.

Indeed, I could just as easily have picked a Ma Ba’ special from the Glasgow Cup Final of October 1936, a 2-2 draw at Ibrox (tut, so much for neutrality), on the grounds that Peter was just turned 18 at the time. However, we don’t get too many League wins in Govan, so my eyes are more inclined to focus on our visit there on holiday Monday, 3rd January, 1938.

19-year-old McKennan was described as brilliant on the day, constantly unlocking the Rangers defence, and Partick Thistle were described as “superior to the champions in almost every department”. Such was the siege upon the Rangers goal that panic set in, manifest in the pathetic attempt of their left-back, Robert McDonald, to fist away a net-bound shot, mid-way through the second half. Justice was done when Ma Ba’ converted the penalty kick to put Thistle 2 nil up. A late consolation goal for the home side gave the scoreline an unrealistic air of respectability; Rangers 1 Partick Thistle 3.

Some years later, fleets of coaches left Partick and Maryhill to watch Peter play for his new club, West Brom, when they played a friendly at Love Street in 1947. Such was the long-held Jaggy devotion to MA BA, Bachelor of the footballing arts.