The Thistle Archive

The 20-year-old winger certainly stoked up a lot of interest amongst the Thistle fans when he finally arrived in September 1999 after a protracted on-off saga due to technical difficulties in obtaining a work permit. The youngster arrived as a Namibian title winner with Black Africa, and was hungry for fame and to better his footballing prospects. Already, he had amassed 9 full international caps and, in the recent summertime, had scored in a 1-1 draw with Côte D'Ivoire in an African Nations Qualifier. The teenager had previously trained with Manchester United and both Anderlecht and Ajax wanted to have him over for trials, but Quinton calculated that playing regular football with Thistle would give him his best chance at progression in the grand scheme of things.

1999-00 wasn't the best of seasons for 3rd tier Thistle though, as John Lambie (now in his 3rd spell as gaffer) contined to plot the route from down and out back to the promised land. It was all very mid-table and in many ways Quinton's performances mirrored the season as a whole, blowing hot and cold. Talking of which, the snow covered plains and mountains en route to Dingwall in December left the youngster awestruck. It was the first time he'd seen snow and his snowball fight with team mates made the front cover of the following match programme! He scored the first of his 3 goals as a Jag that day, but it was merely a consolation in a 1-2 defeat.

His second goal also came against Ross County and this time it counted for more - a 4-2 win for Thistle this time. The goal was remarkable in many ways; it marked his 21st birthday, it was scored directly from a corner and it capped a man-of-the-match performance. To boot, it was essentially the winner, putting Thistle 3-2 up in the 53rd minute. We were all delighted, as was he:

I practice scoring from corners all the time but that's the first time I've actually managed to do it in a game. I was delighted to get a goal for Thistle on my birthday and I really enjoyed my partnership with Peter Lindau - we understand each other's game. My only regret is that I didn't score again but overall I'm very happy with the way I played.

Quinton brought honour to the club when he added two further caps for Namibia whilst a Partick Thistle man, playing in COSAFA Cup matches against Angola (2 October) and Zimbabwe (14 May). Come the end of the season, it turned out that manager John Lambie hadn't been entirely convinced by the player and there was a sense of disappointment all round when it was announced that the adventure had come to an end, the potential somewhat unfulfilled. Thistle went on to win back-to-back titles in the following two seasons and Quinton did finally make a move to the European continent, signing with Duisburg where he made little impact. He subsequently had an interesting career that took him to South Africa, Palestine, Norway and India. In his final tally up as an internationalist he clocked up 52 appearances and bagged 7 goals for his country, a very impressive record. He later went into management, keeping his love for the game alive.

Quinton is included in our feature piece, The Definitive Who's Who Of The Partick Thistle Internationalists →