Thursday 13th February, 2020 at 8:38am
Ramsden’s Cup Quarter-Final
Sunday 9th September 2012
Partick Thistle 3 Raith Rovers 0
Earlier in this tournament Thistle had already beaten Clyde 1-0 at Alloa, courtesy of a goal by Kris Doolan(who else?) and then took care of Queen’s Park at Hampden, winning 5-4 in a pulsating encounter. Next up came the featured match, followed by a rather uninspiring 1-0 success against Cowdenbeath at Central Park and so we had booked our place in the final – more of that later.
The Raith Rovers match was played on a Sunday with a 4:05 kick-off to meet the requirements of BBC Alba television. Weird, I hear you say, but that’s the way of things in this modern age. As to the match itself, the half-time interval arrived with the score-sheet blank, and then all of a sudden the goals flowed, two for Squiddy(Chris Erskine) and one for Steven Craig, son of former Thistle player Joe. The game was now over as a contest, with 30 minutes still to play. The full Thistle team was as follows:- Scott Fox, Stephen O’Donnell, Stuart Bannigan, Paul Paton, Aaron Muirhead, Alan Archibald, Steven Lawless, Sean Welsh, Steven Craig, Hugh Murray, Chris Erskine. On a pretty strong substitutes’ bench we had Ryan Scully, Christie Elliott, Aaron Sinclair(to add Taylor to his name later on), Conrad Balatoni and James Craigen. Both teams changed from their normal colours, with Thistle going for what looked like something between mauve and black, while the visitors favoured red.
Here’s a question for you, in fact two. Who is the Jags player on the front cover of the programme? Secondly, who was the Thistle manager when the chosen match was played?
As indicated earlier, we went on to reach the final of the Ramsden’s Cup, which was played at Livingston. What a let-down it proved to be for all of us. Admittedly, we didn’t play at our best, but there is no escaping the fact that we fell victim to some outrageous gamesmanship. A win over Raith Rovers on Friday night would send us to the final of the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Challenge Cup. Fingers crossed.
Robert R
