Friday 8th February, 2019 at 8:55am
Scottish First Division
5th April 1997
Bayview Park, Methil
East Fife 0 Partick Thistle 2
One of the most memorable things about this match was that those who saw Alan Archibald replace Jered Stirling after 86 minutes were witnessing the first four minutes of Archie’s lengthy and illustrious Thistle career, spanning the next two decades. We have to recognise that he spent a few seasons away at Dundee United, but we shall conveniently gloss over that unpalatable fact and pay tribute to Alan’s 16 years of faithful service in red and yellow.
Thistle won the match fairly comfortably with Gareth Evans scoring on 11 and 51 minutes. We were rarely in danger of being pegged back.
1997-98 was a traumatic season and the main consideration was that after ‘Save the Jags’ we had eased ourselves to a more comfortable position.
The Thistle team on duty at Methil that day was as follows: – Mark Cairns, Callum Milne, Jered Stirling, Jim Slavin, David Farrell, Gregg Watson. Gareth Evans, Stephen Docherty, Steve Maskrey, David Moss, Andy Lyons.
The managerial team at the time of the featured match consisted of Murdo MacLeod and Gordon Chisholm.
Fashion note: – Thistle wore a jersey featuring light and dark blue vertical stripes with navy shorts.
The attendance was given as 976 (oh dear).
Robert R.
