Friday 9th March, 2018 at 9:00am
To gain a draw, even at home, against a team like Aberdeen, is usually looked upon as a fairly creditable performance, and that was certainly the case here. You will find it hard to believe, though, how we took an early lead after just 8 minutes. The referee pointed dramatically to the penalty-spot and after the dust had settled following the customary protestations from the Dons central defenders, that sweet left foot of Kenny Watson fired us into the lead. We had just 82 minutes to hang on and two valuable points would be ours.
Of course, we didn’t succeed, with Walker McCall levelling the scores after 20 minutes. In other words, we managed to hang on for just 12 of those 82 minutes referred to. Still, it was a good performance none the less. We continued after the New Year to hold our own and eventually finished 6th. Sadly, the team fell apart the following season and dropped through the trap-door into the First Division. “Older” Thistle fans, or is it kinder to say “more mature” suffered the pain of 10 years wandering in the wilderness before we re-joined the elite in 1992.
The Thistle team in the featured match lined-up as follows:- Alan Rough, Jamie Doyle, Brian Whittaker, Jackie Campbell, Andy Anderson, Kenny Watson, Donald Park, Ian Jardine, Robert Torrance, Alex O’Hara, George Clark.
The least familiar name there is probably that of Robert or Bobby Thomson. He played only 11 matches for the first-team and a young ginger-haired striker by the name of Maurice Johnston was about to burst on to the scene.
The visitors Aberdeen had a strong team and finished the league as runners-up to Celtic. Here is the line-up:- Leighton, Kennedy, Considine(sound familiar? Doug, father of current player Andrew), Garner, McLeish, Miller, Strachan, McCall, McGhee, Angus, Scanlon. There are some pretty powerful names in there:- Alex McLeish, Willie Miller, Gordon Strachan, Mark McGhee.
Going back to my original observation, I guess a point wasn’t a bad result, looking at some of those names!
A propos of nothing at all, Aberdeen played in their usual red jerseys. Nowadays, this would be considered a colour clash with the red and yellow of Thistle. I was careful not to choose to feature Aberdeen’s visit to Firhill on 24th November 1992 when Thistle were on the wrong end of a 7-0 drubbing. On the other hand, there’s always the possibility of balancing things out. How about finishing with a reference to a match on 5th November 1927? Here it comes. Partick Thistle 7 Aberdeen 0 – very sweet. It came much too early for me, but of course I did suffer the 1992 match – nightmare!
Robert R
