Friday 9th December, 2016 at 8:00am
In 1995 Thistle were enjoying a four year stay in the Premier Division, having returned to the top flight after a decade wandering rather aimlessly at times in the football wilderness, with only a very limited number of highlights, most of which we enjoyed courtesy of Kenny Watson, dead-ball expert, beautiful passer of the ball and with a really sweet left foot.
During the four-year spell referred to above, we played Celtic eight times in the league at Firhill, but sadly could muster only one win, a 1-0 victory on 8th January 1994. Over all, there isn’t a lot to get excited about, just a very creditable draw was secured in the featured match, played before a crowd of 12,760 which outshines the gate of just under 8,000 who attended the recent Rangers match. There are, of course, all sorts of reasons which account for diminishing attendances at Firhill(and lots of other places), but that is too depressing a subject. Let’s concentrate on the match in question. In goal was the ever-dependable and often brilliant Nicky Walker. In front of him we had Alan Dinnie and American-born Steve Pittman, unpredictable but he did pack a terrific wallop in that left foot. In central defence was Steve Welsh, aided by Greg Watson. Patrolling the midfield areas were Tommy Tuner, the elegant Alex Taylor, Albert(the ghost) Craig and the redoubtable Chic Charnley. There were goals in these players, especially Albert, but not on the occasion of this visit of Celtic to Firhill, especially as they had Paddy Bonner in goal, Tom Boyd in defence and the tigerish Peter Grant in midfield. Up front for Thistle were Wayne Foster and Derek McWilliams.
0-0 was an acceptable result against formidable opposition. How would one sum up season 1994/95 as a whole? Well, the spectre of relegation was hovering around, but we survived in 8th position. Disaster was, however, only postponed until the following season, what with Tannadice and all that – let’s not go there, shall we
Robert R.
