Friday 19th January, 2018 at 10:28am
This was a fairly comfortable victory for Thistle down at Palmerston Park in Dumfries. From the 10th minute, when the late Colin McAdam gave us the lead, we were rarely under pressure. This was even more the case when the bouncy, effervescent Jim Melrose scored a second four minutes from the interval. The half-time pie tasted delicious!
As so often happens, a team trailing by a couple of goals at the break has to pull out all the stops to get back into the game and that’s exactly what happened here. After 56 minutes Gerry Phillips pulled a goal back, but Thistle weathered the storm and with a couple of minutes to go Jim Melrose struck again and that was Thistle home and dry. We didn’t have long to wait to find out who our opponents in the next round would be, because the draw was made in the Palmerston Boardroom after the match. It was of minimal interest to the hosts, but quite exciting for us. Out came Thistle, followed by Aberdeen, so we were not exactly beside ourselves with enthusiasm. The usual platitudes were dragged out – it’s a good tie. We are under no delusions, Aberdeen are a quality side, but if we play to our best we can cause an upset and reach the semi-final. It didn’t happen, of course, and the Dons won 2-1! Oh well, there’s always next year, and the next again and so on. Here we are now in 2017, and still waiting. 2021 would be nice, for reasons all Thistle fans will recognise.
Reverting to the featured match, the Thistle team against the “Doonhamers” was as follows:- Alan Rough, David McKinnon, Brian Whittaker, Jackie Campbell, Colin McAdam, Andy Anderson, Jamie Doyle, Ian Jardine, Alex O’Hara, Jim Melrose, Donald Park, – a pretty potent mixture, I think you will agree.
I referred to Queens as the “Doonhamers” – it seems this name originated from the fact that some Dumfries people worked in Glasgow during the week and then went back doon hame at the week-end. I stand to be corrected but it seems a reasonable explanation to me, especially as I acquired It from Thistle legend Jackie Husband, who managed Queens between 1966 and 1968, so he must have been right! Now for the final piece of trivia. Name the only Scottish team to be specificially mentioned in the Bible. Yes, it’s Queen of the South.
Robert R
