Partick Thistle Football Club News

In Conversation With - Paul Paton

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:31:00 GMT

On Saturday it was two goals from Kris Doolan, taking his tally from the last two games to three, that helped see off Ayr United in the Challenge Cup. As impressive as Kris’ form in front of goal on Saturday was it was teammate Paul Paton that collected the ALBA Man of the Match award at the end of the game.

caught up with Paul just after he had received his award on Saturday and suggested to him that he must have been happy with his performance.

“I was happy with my performance against Ayr United and in fact I’ve been happy with my performances all season. Against Ayr though the most important thing wasn’t individual performances, but getting the win for the team. We’ve let a lot of people down recently, nobody more so than ourselves. So to get the win went some small way to make up for that.”

Although not on the score sheet himself it was Paul’s hand in both goals that helped him to win the Man of the Match award.

“Playing wing back I always fancy myself to create goals and I have been getting plenty of balls into the box this season and I just need to keep doing that. Against Ayr it was two good finishes from Kris Doolan which will do his confidence a world of good.”

So having nearly uprooted a post against Cowdenbeath with a shot is a Paul Paton goal or two on the cards this season?

“I certainly feel that I am more than capable of getting a couple of goals this season. It’s just a case of trying to keep getting into the right kind of positions and hopefully get a bit more luck.”

Moving away from his own contribution to Saturday’s game, Paul provided us with his assessment of the game as a whole.

“I thought that we totally dominated the first half but we gave away another daft goal and Ayr came back into the game and the second half became a bit of a slog after that. First half I felt that we were different class but we definitely faded in the second half.”

Now that we are in the semi-final is there any preference to who we are paired with in Thursday afternoon’s draw.

“I think we just want to get a home tie. We would fancy our chances against anyone at Firhill and we will take anyone at home as we know that we are going to have to beat the best at some point if we are going to win the competition.”

The prospect of potentially reaching the final is something that excites Paul despite the fact that the Challenge Cup is often derided by people.

“A lot of people don’t regard the Challenge Cup as a particularly important competition but I think if you were to talk to people that have played in a Challenge Cup Final it would be a different story. I’ve never played in a final in first team football so I would be delighted if we were to reach this season’s final.”

ALBA Challenge Cup Semi-Final Draw

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:42:00 GMT

The draw for the semi-finals of the ALBA Challenge Cup will take place at Hampden Park this coming Thursday at 2:30pm.

The semi-finals are scheduled to take place on the weekend of Saturday 9^th and Sunday 10^th October and Thistle, in our search for our first ever Challenge Cup Final appearance, will be paired against either Peterhead, Queen of the South or Ross County. Our preference is naturally for a home tie.

Youth Round Up w/c 05/09/10

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:28:00 GMT

All four of our youth teams were in action yesterday.

The under 19s were in action against Queen’s Park at Lesser Hampden and after defeat in their last couple of matches drew this fixture 1-1.

Thistle fell behind as early as the tenth minute when the Queen’s Park wing back wasn’t closed down and he drove low into the corner of the net from the edge of the penalty box.

To be truthful Thistle toiled to make any headway in the remainder of the half but didn’t concede what would have been a damaging second goal.

At the interval Thistle made a change with Stuart Hodge replacing Jonathon Baxter a switch that allowed Lance Pearce to move to the left wing back role and Kyle Lochhead move to a more central position in the Thistle defence.

Graeme Shepherd kept Thistle in the game with some splendid blocks but Thistle gradually clawed their way back into the contest and in the 67^th minute Kieran Burns equalised turning the ball home from close range following a corner on the left to earn a credible draw.

Team: Shepherd, Pearce, Baxter ( Hodge), Kennedy (Sweeney), Stevenson, Campbell, Lochhead, Dunbar, Fraser (Clougherty), Burns, Burbridge.

Our under 17s meantime had a disappointing afternoon losing 4-1 away to Morton but the under 15 side enjoyed better fortune, beating Cowdenbeath. However, our under 13 side lost their fixture away to Clyde.

In Conversation with - Stuart Bannigan

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:14:00 GMT

Saturday was in general a positive day for Partick Thistle. Thistle emerging from an entertaining game as 2-1 winners and in doing so reached, for only the second time, the semi-final of the ALBA Challenge Cup. The inclusion in the side, and the performance of, young Stuart Bannigan was another positive factor to take from the match.

Having come on as a substitute for the last 18 minutes of the First Round tie against Clyde it wasn’t Stuart’s first team debut on Saturday but it was his first start, and what an excellent 70 minutes he contributed, and it was clearly a memorable afternoon for the young midfielder.

“I was delighted and a little surprised to get a start against Ayr United. I didn’t find out that I was going to start the game until about 1:30pm and as I’ve said I was a little surprised but also really looking forward to it. It was good too that my mum, dad and aunt were at the game as well.”

“I really enjoyed the game although it was a wee bit hard to get into it at first. It was a tough match although first half I thought that things went well.”

Having enjoyed thoroughly his first start in the Thistle first team Stuart is understandably keen to repeat the experience.

“Hopefully I can make a few more appearances in the first team this season but it’s really up to the gaffer now. It would be great to get a few more games under my belt because at this stage of my career it’s all about gaining experience from playing at first team level.”

The fact that Stuart’s first start coincided with a Thistle victory would only have made the occasion that bit sweeter for him.

“First half I thought that we did really well and after the break the game really opened up. Ayr got more into the game but I felt that we deserved our victory. That’s us through to the semi-final with a place in the final just 90 minutes away which would be something to look forward to.”

Ayr United - After Match Reaction

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 17:48:00 GMT

Thistle this afternoon marched through to the semi-final of the ALBA Challenge Cup with a 2-1 win over Ayr United in what proved to be an entertaining 90 minutes.

As always caught up with Thistle manager Ian McCall for his thoughts on the afternoon’s game.

“I thought that in the first half we were absolutely terrific and had we gone in at half-time 2-0 or 3-0 ahead then it would have been game over. It wouldn’t have flattered us if we had gone in at the break with that kind of lead either.”

“We were disappointed when we lost a goal a minute after taking the lead at Cowdenbeath last week and a disappointing aspect of the game today was that we conceded, this time after 3 minutes, so soon after scoring a second goal today. In the second half Ayr United adopted a very gung-ho approach and they had two or three chances to score and Bryn Halliwell made a terrific save as well. In Andy Rodgers Ayr have a very talented player, a player that I like, and while Mark Roberts legs might have gone a bit his movement is still first class. It wasn’t an easy game for us by any means.”

“While Ayr were putting us under pressure we had thought of changing the formation but decided to play David Rowson just in front of the defence as we tried to weather the storm. As much as Ayr had us under pressure during the last 20 minutes or so though we shouldn’t forget that we had some really good chances as well. It was a very open game with both teams chasing goals all the time.”

“It was pleasing to see Jackie McNamara back in action and I think that he showed today that he is a class player. The position that we played him in isn’t necessarily the position that I would prefer to play him in but we are a little think in terms of numbers at the moment. The good thing though is that Alan Archibald is on the way back and will play in a game on Tuesday. It would be nice to have both Jackie and Alan back for the semi-final.”

“We brought Stuart Bannigan into the team for the game today and I thought that he was terrific and showed some nice touches. We took him off after 70 minutes simply because the game was getting tough but he has made it hard for us to take him out of the team for next week against Stirling Albion which is a very important game for us.”

“We had to make a change at half-time with John Robertson picking up a calf injury. We think though that as we got him off early enough that he should be okay.”