Friday 12th May, 2017 at 8:30am
I have chosen this particular match in order to highlight two Thistle goals, each of which could have been a contender for “Goal of the Season”. The first was scored after 27 minutes by full-back Gary Miller, who cut in from the right and beat Alan Mannus all ends up with a blistering drive from about 25 yards. Ironically, Gary played previously for the Perth Saints, making 61 first-team appearances for the McDiarmid Park club, before moving to Thistle. Following his spell at Firhill he joined Plymouth Argyle.
When Gary opened the scoring we remarked that we would wait a very long time to again witness such a fabulous strike. Not a bit of it. The waiting time turned out to be precisely six minutes. A goal of equal quality came from Stevie Lawless. If these two goals had been scored in what the television companies perceive as higher profile matches we would have had the privilege of seeing them over and over again.
Anyway, Thistle held their two-goal lead fairly comfortably through to the half-time interval, at which point we “experts” sitting in the Directors Box decreed that we would require to be resolute for the first 15 minutes of the second-half in anticipation of a St Johnstone onslaught in an effort to get back in to the game. So what do Thistle do? They concede a goal to St Johnstone right at the start of the second-half, so that was well and truly among the pigeons. It all adds to the excitement, of course, but that’s the kind of excitement I can do without, thank you very much. In the event Thistle were able to see the game out reasonably comfortably. The full team was as follows:- Tomas Cerny, Gary Miller, Dan Seaborne, Sean Welsh, Callum Booth, Abdul Osman, David Amoo, Stuart Bannigan, Stevie Lawless, Liam Lindsay, Mathias Pogba(replaced by Kris Doolan after 71 minutes).
Football can throw up some strange anomalies at times. Following his wonder strike in Perth, Gary Miller found himself on the substitutes’ bench against Hamilton Academical the following Saturday. There are of course 101 reasons why these things happen – a wee knock or twist in training, perhaps, who knows?
It was especially pleasing to win this game, given the fact that St Johnstone had beaten Aberdeen 5-1 at Pittodrie the previous Saturday.
Robert R
