Friday 17th March, 2017 at 8:05am
Over the years I have watched many matches played in pretty horrible weather conditions. In the early days, of course, we stood on the uncovered terracing, enduring whatever the elements decided to throw at us. On the day of the featured match the weather was unbelievably bad. We were treated to gale-force winds and persistent, driving rain.
Nowadays conditions such as these would have seen the game postponed or maybe abandoned. When I say that the goalkeepers could scarcely send the ball beyond their own penalty-box when taking a goal-kick, you will get some idea of the ferocity of the wind.
In such conditions it can be important to win the toss for choice of ends. Our skipper Jim Duffy guessed wrongly and opposing captain Tommy Burns chose to take wind advantage. However, the score at half-time was 2-2 and I remember being pleased with that, thinking we were a good bet to win in the second-half with the fierce wind at our backs, and so it proved. For those of you who are familiar with Rugby Park, in the second-half Thistle would be attacking the goal behind which the visiting fans will be housed this Saturday, the goal where Gary Fraser and Robbie Muirhead scored absolute belters last season in our 5-2 win.
The goal hero on that wild day back in January 1991 was Calum Campbell who scored a brilliant hat-trick. In total he bulged the net 23 times in 67 appearances for Thistle. It took him only 8 minutes to open his account, but this was cancelled out by Paul Flexney seven minutes later. Calum obliged again after 19 minutes, but back came Kilmarnock once more through Tom Callaghan five minutes from the interval.
The second-half, with the elements now in our favour, didn’t work out exactly as I had hoped, but Calum Campbell came up trumps and scored the winner after 70 minutes, thus completing his treble. These were two important points for Thistle in their quest to escape from the First Division, but in the end they fell short, finishing in 4th place. However, promotion would be gained the following season.
The full team in the featured match was as follows: – Cammy Duncan, Graeme Robertson, Bobby Law, Jim Duffy, Gordon Rae, Grant Tierney, John Buckley, Calum Campbell, Colin McGlashan, Chic Charnley, David Elliott. The last-mentioned was really fast, second only to the American Jimmy Walker for speed, in my opinion.
Playing for Kilmarnock was Ray Montgomerie, who gave Thistle good service over 40 matches in season 1999/2000.
Inside the programme is an article on Frank Coulston, an assistant manager as Kilmarnock at the time.
Robert R
