Friday 29th December, 2017 at 9:00am
This was the final match of the season and it was really annoying to see the points thrown away near the end, because this turned out to be a costly defeat both literally and metaphorically. When the final whistle blew and news of the results elsewhere filtered through, we had dropped several places in the rankings and in so doing lost out massively in the payments clubs receive in accordance with their finishing place in the league table. It should never have happened. How often have we found ourselves expressing that view?
Ross County drew first blood with a goal from Jordan Slew after 22 minutes. There was no further scoring during a first half which saw Scott Fox having to be replaced by Paul Gallacher just before the interval. Things went from bad to worse in 48 minutes when Yoann Arquin added to the visitors’ lead, but the ever-dangerous Lyle Taylor opened Thistle’s account just three minutes later. The fight-back was on and in 73 minutes George Moncur, on for Chris Erskine, equalised. Now let’s go for the winner. It was not to be. In 77 minutes County stole the points with a bizarre goal, possibly from Melvin De Leeuw. There was a feeling at the time that it should have gone down as a James Craigen own goal. Anyway, league placings and a considerable amount of money vanished over the horizon.
Strange note: – since it was the final league fixture, all games had to kick-off at the same time, in this case 12:15. Nothing should surprise us these days
What about the Thistle team? Well, here it is: – Scott Fox, Gabriel Piccolo(a name to conjure with), Conrad Balatoni, James Craigen, Chris Erskine, Lyle Taylor, Gary Fraser, Lee Mair, Jordan McMillan, Kallum Higginbotham, Christie Elliott.
Now this is an easy one. Who is the Thistle player on the front cover? The No 3 on the short makes it even easier. He has covered the entire length of the country. Born in Aberdeen, played in Montrose, Glasgow, Wigan, Doncaster, believed to be in Plymouth now, so any further south and next stop could be Paris St. Germain?
Robert R
