Friday 15th September, 2017 at 9:00am
Allowing myself a little bit of poetic licence, let me say this:-
Remember, remember
The 4th of November
I certainly do, and so too will Firhill favourite Bobby Houston who scored the only goal of the game featured here. It came after 57 minutes at what I term the “town” or “south” end of the ground i.e. looking left from where the Jackie Husband Stand is located. Strangely enough, Bobby would repeat this feat against Rangers in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden in April 1979. He rose beautifully and headed home what would almost certainly have been the goal that would propel us into the Scottish Cup final for the first time since 1930. Alas, the match officials deemed the effort to be offside – scandalous. We may never have a better chance to savour Hampden glory.
Anyway, the featured match was a tight game with Thistle emerging deserved winners, with the following team:- Alan Rough, David MacKinnon, Brian Whittaker, Andy Anderson, Jackie Campbell, John Marr, Bobby Houston, Jim Melrose, Alex O’Hara, Dougie Somner, Donald Park. The substitutes, neither of whom came on, were Ian Gibson and Ally Love.
As I have said, it was an evenly-contested match with few clear-cut scoring opportunities. In the Rangers team were former Thistle defender Alex Forsyth and future Jags manager Derek Johnstone and one of their substitutes was Kenny Watson who replaced Davie Cooper after 65 minutes. I have to say that Kenny inflicted no harm upon us during this match, but went on later to become our outstanding player of the 1980’s, a largely barren decade for Thistle fans, it has to be said.
In manager Bertie Auld’s programme notes he states that Rangers will be riding high after the previous Wednesday’s momentous victory over Eindhoven. Maybe so, but they had come up against stiffer opposition in the shape of Partick Thistle, so riding high made no difference.
Season 1978/79 saw Thistle finish 8th in a league of ten teams, with two relegated. Sounds like we were flirting with relegation. Not at all! We finished eleven points clear of Hearts who were 9th and a whopping 17 ahead of Motherwell in the final league slot. No need to worry – at least not yet!
Robert R
