Friday 6th December, 2019 at 11:27am
Scottish Second Division
20th November 1999
Queen of the South 1 Partick Thistle 2
Every club has its ups and downs, and in November 1999 both Queen of the South and Partick Thistle were about as far down as they could possibly be. The Dumfries men were propping up the entire league, while Thistle were one place above them. Had we been able to see into the future, we wouldn’t have been so worried. In actual fact, Thistle eventually hauled themselves up to fifth place. Our hosts for the day finished ninth. The following season Thistle gained promotion. It’s a funny old game, as someone once famously said.
Let’s have a look at the Jags team of 20 years ago:- Kevin Budinauckas (correct spelling guaranteed), Albert Craig, Des McKeown, Derek Ferguson, Ray Montgomerie, Alan Archibald, Derek Lyle (still playing in 2019), Eric Paton, Robert Dunn, Quinton Jacobs, Isaac English.
It was the last-mentioned who fired Thistle into the lead after 12 minutes. However, the home side levelled the scores just before the half-hour mark. Honours were fairly even after that until Derek Lyle came up with what proved to be the winner with 20 minutes to go. Three valuable points were therefore on their way to Firhill.
For those puzzled by the inclusion of Quinton Jacobs in the Thistle team, let me tell you a little about him. He was a young man from Namibia, and when we travelled to Dingwall to play Ross County on 4th December he got the shock of his life. The playing surface had been cleared and the white stuff was piled up all around the perimeter of the pitch. Poor Quinton had never in his entire life seen snow before! He regained his composure and scored Thistle’s solitary goal that day in a 2-1 defeat.
Do you remember former Jags man Nobby Clark? In the match programme accompanying this article there is a managerial league table comparing the success rates of the last eleven Queen of the South managers, and top of the list with the best record between 1984 and 1999 was Nobby Clark. He’s a versatile fellow. When I last spoke to him, he was working for Aberdeen, running the rule over their next opponents and reporting the details back to the Dons manager.
In goal for Queen of the South in the featured match was someone familiar to Thistle supporters – yes, John Hillcoat, who also had a spell at Firhill.
Familiar names pop up all over the place in this great game of ours, don’t they? It’s just another small part of the interest that keeps us on our toes and our brains ticking over. In case you were wondering, the man entrusted with the captaincy for Thistle was Ray Montgomerie.
Robert R.
