The Thistle Archive

Had fate taken Partick Thistle down a different path in 1892 we may well have ended up with a Roman goddess on our badge rather than the flower of Scotland which has endured for more than one hundred years. As our new Partickle explains, the committee had an intriguing proposal to consider… Minerva – What's In A Name? →

Our (hopeless but game!) quest to meet every obscure player in Thistle history continues, and we've had a bit of success via the Evening Times in the Mitchell library, as well as picking up the Bobby Morrison story via a relative on Facebook... Bobby Morrison → Scoring debutant alongside Willie Sharp in '39 and a brace in a 4-2 win over Celtic in his first two games. Ashes scattered at Firhill. James Colgan → On the back of goals from Sharp & Shankly, James put Thistle 3 up at Ibrox against the champions in April 1945. It was fantasy football for the 19-year-old. Joe Murphy → One-off wartime appearance, but a 2-1 Southern League win at Love Street. Robert McFarlane → Goalie who was a Junior Cup winner with Perthshire in '44. Has a 100% penalty prevention ratio with the Jags. Thistle's player connections with Dundee United → Pleasingly, all of this gives us a 100% image fill of all Dundee United connections. A small victory! Could you help with our missing player images? →

Thistle returned their 1,000th League clean-sheet yesterday and our brand new page, half-list / half-partickle, marks the occasion. It's mildly interesting... Thistle's milestone clean-sheets →

On the anniversary of Britain's declaration of war against Germany, our latest 'Partickle' look back at one of the most tumultuous seasons in Partick Thistle's long and checkered history. There were dark skies, but bright spells too. Read about the return of the prodigal son and the emergence of a new wonderkid... 1939-40 – A Season For Remembrance →

Andrew Duff was born on Sunday, 10th April, 1859, at the family home in Monkton, South Ayrshire. He was the son of James Duff, a shoemaker to trade, and Jane Duff, née Gemmell. There was a sad background to his early life as he was actually the second Andrew Duff, the 4-year-old brother he never knew having succumbed to some sort of ailment just 13 months before Andrew was born. It'd be fair to say that Andrew II took his brother's name and did him proud. His was a life well-lived, occupied by shipbuilding, playing football and starting a family. He won many cups and medals in his time and was a standout player for Partick Thistle in the early days, demonstrating fine qualities as both a goalkeeper and a forward. He's the only Partick Thistle player who will ever lay claim to winning two cups for the club by keeping a clean-sheet as a goalkeeper in one of them and scoring a hat-trick as a forward in the other. He would even improvise and have a go in both positions in the same match if he was bored! He was greatly esteemed by his clubmates and the supporters, both as a player and also for his unassuming and gentlemanly ways. This is the story of one the very earliest Partick Thistle legends... (14 mins read) Whit's the goalie daein? The Andrew Duff Story →

This cap was earned by ANDREW JOHNSTON on the 23rd February 1889 at Powderhall in Edinburgh, the seventh annual meeting of Glasgow vs. Edinburgh. It was Andrew's third and final cap, We had a great breakthrough on uncovering Andrew's life particulars recently and his great grandson, Douglas Fyfe, took the photograph for us yesterday. After Andrew's tragic early death in 1905, his second-born, John, took possession of the cap in question. Brilliantly, John lived in Thistle Street; this cap is charmed! Sadly, John died of cancer in 1959 and his wife looked after it until she herself passed away in 1983. It then passed to Andrew's great grandson, Douglas Fyfe, who has ensured its survival ever since. There's a medal attached to the story too, and you can read all about it today... Andrew Johnston →

Partick Thistle 15 Cameronians 0! Thistle’s annihilation of the army side back in September 1895 stands as a record score for the Glasgow Cup competition as a whole. To our great frustration, several papers refused to give up the scorers... or so we thought. 4/5 years after we last checked the Scottish Referee, our Joe Kelly retraced the footsteps and there it was all this time... just 2 columns to the left in the big long rambling district jottings, which just goes to prove 8 eyes are better than 4... all 15 scorers revealed!!! We've had some amazing finds this years but this is right up as possibly the best of the lot. The biggest take is yet another 4 goals for Willie Paul (8 in the last few days!!!), lifting him to 233, just 6 off the very summit of our 'All Games' scoring chart, with great potential yet for the conversion of unknowns. PTFC All-Games Scorers Chart 239 - Willie Sharp (1939-1956) 233 - Willie Paul (1885-1900) 130 - George Smith (1954-1963) 127 - Kris Doolan (2009-2019) 122 - Jimmy Walker (1947-1953) 115 - John Torbet (1924-1933) 114 - Peter McKennan (1935-1947) 109 - Davie McParland (1954-1967) 106 - Willie Newall (1939-1945) 100 - John Wallace (1936-1945) 100 - Sandy Hair (1923-1928) You can read the Referee articles and explore all the impact of this find via our home page today... thethistlearchive.net →

He had a tough gig when Sandy Brown departed for Everton in September 1963, but the teenage Hugh Tinney soon won over the Jags fans with his marauding fearlessness from the left back position. On this day 1968 (by sheer co-incidence actually) Hugh actually played against Thistle for his new team, Bury, in an exciting 3-3 draw at Gigg Lane. And today, for the first-time ever, we've introduced an 'Audio' tab to the player's profile concept, with Hugh Tinney being the first. It's a nice and easy template to apply, so if anyone has any more please let us know and we'll apply them to any given profile. If you get the chance, Hugh's great hour-long life-story interview is well worth a listen... Hugh Tinney →

Cheers, appreciate the feedback. It's not that 19th century bios are a priority, it's just that births, deaths & first-time photies are being generated on an industrial scale and the bios are just going hand-in-hand while the players are in mind. Thinking of creating a whole section for "Just the Videos" which would go hand-in-hand with the new uploads. Still a lot of digital transfers to be done from DVD before that. Alas, TTA's production is heavy going for me. I'm going to be begging for uploading assistance again in the near future, with a bit of luck I'll actually get an offer of help this time, that'd certainly help to progress things. ~ William Trying not to bombard this board too much, anyone interested hopefully is keeping an eye on our busy home-page. Some big news today though... In what's probably one of the most exciting breakthroughs of all at the Thistle Archive, today we're pleased to identify HUGH McCOLL, a strong contender to be one of Partick Thistle's founder members. At a general meeting on the 3rd September 1877, the first ever committee of the club was elected, and Hugh, just turned 19, took his place as the secretary. In the player's chronology, only John Inglis comes before Hugh in Thistle's story. Hugh McColl → A youthful enthusiasm drove the burgeoning game forwards in the 1870s, and we'd expect that our founders - were we able to find them - would all turn to be very young, with most, if not all, being teenagers. This would be in line with other clubs of the day, with the four Rangers founders being a good example; Moses McNeil (16), Peter McNeil (17), Peter Campbell (15) & William McBeath (15). As well as the aforementioned Hugh McColl, we're thrilled to reveal the identity of a second member of the first-ever Partick Thistle committee, also a player. It transpires that GEORGE LECKIE was the treasurer at the age of just 17. 'mon the young team! George Leckie →

So, season 2022-23 is now well underway and that's reflected today on the Archive as per below. Aaron Muirhead the man of the moment and currently topping two of our charts on alphabetical order! Match List The full season at-a-glance; clicking on the results takes you through to our match hubs, clicking on the opponents takes you through to our H2H record. Video highlights are in place for all 4 games so far. Squad Stats Keep an eye on who's In The Jersey as well as the Appearances, Goals & Assists tallies at-a-glance. As a nice new feature for the season ahead, a compact and sortable Squad list table is included, showing the key elements of each player. As ever, laptop and desktop users can drill down further into the stats with the full-width stats tables for this season and the career; access both from the +show -hide collapsible blocks at the foot of the section. Championship Table Now re-embedded c/o Football Web Pages. Best of its kind, you'll notice the quick updates in-play as the League season unfolds. Crime Count Refs, pens, yellows & reds at-a-glance. It's 100% in favour of Jags at the moment with not a single crime count conceded. That Banzo's a changed boy. League Cup A limited edition entry while Jags stock lasts, Wikipedia's League Cup page for 2022-23 has been embedded, so that'll save you opening new tabs as you frantically search to see who else is second on match day four. Season 2022-23 →

Thistle managers → With the recent confirmation of Adam McLean as caretaker manager in 1959, our managers pages got a mini re-styling. Each of the 33 now have their matches re-assuringly numbered on the foremost tab on their profile. As ever, you can click on the match result to access the individual match hub. All 6,687 matches in our history (to the end of 2021-22) are covered, and all come with our own unique potted report. The match hubs link back to the managers in each case, so you can skip back and forth when researching or just casually browsing. You'll sometimes notice that the matches where the scoreline is in "bruised purple" (e.g. Murdo MacLeod →) are not in the numbering system; these are the abandoned or voided matches which we like to include for posterity but never include in our streaks, tallies and milestones. Season by season → With the recent amazing discovery about the earliest-known Partick Thistle strip in 1876, each of our 148 seasons has also had a similar re-styling. As with the managers pages, the matches are all numbered for an at-a-glance understanding of the campaign, and a (brief) results summary is now included at the footer, as well as a subtle improvement to the page stylization. Some good examples to look at would be the pages where Historical Football Kits have recently added new Partick Thistle strips e.g. 1875-76 →, 1974-75 → or 1982-83 →. Again, you'll sometimes notice that the matches where the scoreline is in "bruised purple" are neither in the numbering system or included in any stats tallies. 'Bio Extra' tabs As you may already know, we have a mini-bio for each of the ~2,000 first-team players in our history, albeit these were mostly auto-generated in rather mechanical language. We've been adding some "meat to the bone" with our 'Bio Extra' tabs and now have around 500 or so in place. We're kind of casually just adding them in whenever we have cause to be re-visiting a player's profile e.g. Ralph McElhaney → or Mouhamed Niang →. Recently, all of our current squad members → got the 'Bio Extra' treatment, so it's worth keeping an eye on the home page news to see the latest updates. Did you know Mason McCready → was actually American and his Dad won a Superbowl winners ring in 2001? Neither did we until last week! Anyone who fancies getting involved in writing a bio paragraph or two for their favourite Jag then please do get in touch →

Think we're all in shock and saddened with this terrible news. May his soul rest in peace. We've put together Adam's complete goals montage video, and it's included on his profile page on the Archive today. It's a day to remember how he made us smile during some low years... Adam Strachan →

Club historian Robert Reid knows a thing or two about Partick Thistle legends, so when he describes Jackie Husband as a Thistle stalwart par excellence one must sit up and take notice. For whole new generations of Partick Thistle fans, “The Jackie Husband” has been part of the bi-weekly parlance for a good few decades now. The East stand named in his honour is an impressive engineering structure of concrete and steel, most certainly fit to house the Firhill faithful at Saturday worship. But what of thee Jackie Husband? What of the man, the legend? Donald Turner had his eyes on Yoker Athletic's 20-year-old half-back at the start of our last pre-war season, and finally made his move towards the end of 1938. Little did he, or Jackie, know that this would be the start of a working relationship between a man and a club that would span almost 54 years, broken only by a two-year stint as manager of Queen of the South. 368 appearances and 12 goals doesn't even begin to tell the story of Jackie's involvement with Thistle; player, captain, trainer, coach, physiotherapist, scout, kitman, handyman, bus driver, pitch sander, not to mention being a general mentor to one and all, especially in his later years. On the 77th anniversary of Jackie becoming the first Partick Thistle captain to lift a national trophy at Hampden Park, it's our great pleasure to look back at the life and times of the gentleman who was the very definition of “a great servant to the club”. Thee Jackie Husband →

Jeezo, that's poor. Just looking back, the same fixture (3rd tier) 21 years ago → got 4,000. They'll be missing out on some coin with that kinda set-up.

So, after all the excitement of League reveal day, we're now looking at 42 games in the calendar so far. Looking forward to meeting 'The Broch' for the first time, and first-footing Queen's Park @ Lesser Hampden sounds good (in theory). All match hub skeletons are now in place at the Archive, as well as the season overview page →

Former programme editors Niall Kennedy and Tom Hosie wrote mini pen pics for our players from 1982 to the end of the 90s which featured in a millennium special A-Z back in the day. They've allowed us to reproduce them on the Archive for everyone to enjoy again, which was very decent of them. These give some much-needed flavour to our rather robotic introduction bios. 267 player profiles have been duly improved today, full list on the home page → p.s. If anyone wants to write a pen pic for any of their favourite players not already covered then get in touch →

The good news is that the annual update for our On This Day feature has been completed, with reports on all the 2021-22 matches, the day rankings re-tabulated, and all the newly found births and deaths duly loaded. The bad news is that it's stubbornly refusing to embed into our home page (via a cross-site i-frame kind-of-thing). As can be seen on the home page today →, it can still be viewed by opening a new window, albeit that's not ideal. If anyone with I.T. or programming know-how could offer some assistance please we'd be very pleased to receive it, please get in touch →

Great believer in being all-in or nothing at all. Stop-start points for spells was considered but abandoned as it was too difficult to research in the past. Sorry!

We're on a great run of unveiling never-seen-before (by us) Jagsmen lately. It's a combination of catch-up post-database-crash, some inspired digging by ourselves and some great contributions from modern-day descendants. Five more have been added since we last posted here, taking us up to the great milestone of 1,300 Jagsmen with a face to their name. Yep, after some 10 years of digging, scanning, cropping and whatnot, we're seeing our 1,300th Partick Thistle player (John Hastie) image today, and what a cracking shot it is; all the way from his great granddaughter, Ros, in Australia. It's a huge gathering, and possibly even the largest tally of first team player images of any club side in the world. Special mentions for Stuart Deans for breaking the ground with this task many moons ago, and to Joe Kelly for all his great digging in recent times. We'll keep at it, you just never know what could still be lurking out there! Incidentally, just like Doolan vs. County, we've passed the milestone immediately (behind the scenes) and we'll have news of this shortly when they've been applied. Full details (and keep your eye on) our home page news... → p.s. Could you help with our missing player images?

^ Wow, yes, it'll be by far the earliest ever. In fact, we've only ever started three seasons in June: 25.06.1995 LASK Linz [a] D2-2 (Intertoto Cup Group 6 - game 1) 27.06.1951 Inverness Thistle [a] D2-2 (Friendly) 29.06.2016 Cirencester Town [a] W6-0 (Friendly)

There's a suggestion on WAT that we should scan all the match programmes and put them up. We have the material and the wherewithal, just not so sure about the will and the energy. Speaking generally, TTA is a free platform by Thistle fans for Thistle fans, so if anyone wants to get involved with such capers, get in touch. Re the programmes idea, we previously used the Celtic '71 game → as an experiment with a Match Programme tab, check it out. The programme has both a video and a clickable image gallery on that example. Some more bits n bobs of Archive News... We finally found a decent report on the game at the City Ground in March '66. HT scores now 100% complete for 1965-66 →! It's these little things, ye know? We've found a new match lurking in the Perthshire Advertiser; the Jags were at Muirton Park in April 1952 →. Interesting side note: Jimmy McGowan faced up to his younger brother, Ally, for the one and only time in their professional careers! Discovering new matches is always exciting - none more so than the one we found the other week hiding in plain sight in the Glasgow Herald - Partick Thistle 1 Rangers 0 →, a testimonial match for Frank Branscombe. We make that FIFTY FOUR Partick Thistle wins over Rangers, an excellent tally, even if it is out of fashion! As a result of the aforementioned discovery, JOHN COLQUHOUN belatedly takes his place in our Goalies' Clean-Sheet Debutants Club →, and becomes the first Jag to do so against Rangers. John's one of 177 goalies that we've had, and our end-of-season update table → (fully sortable) compares them at all at-a-glance. Jamie 'ratio' Sneddon is up to joint 13th in overall clean-sheets, with a great opportunity to rise next season. tl;dr FTOF Thank you.

Pleased to report that season 2021-22 is now finalised on the Archive; tables, videos and reports are in place for matches, managers, players and officials. We won't bore you with a big list, but all noteworthy updates are included on our home page news →, and you can investigate from there if you like. Unfortunately, we have 45 of this season's 50 matches covered by video →, so apologies in advance if you find yourself watching some of them again... For the first time since 1982-83 Thistle received no red cards in the League. Astound your friends with a myriad of such factoids by studying our fully-sortable all-time results tables → ... Kyle Turner (on 59% game time) registered double figures for competitive assists. Clicking back through the seasons → you can see that he was the first to do so since Kallum Higginbotham (11) in 2013-14... Hopefully everything is spot-on everywhere, if not please do let us know (e-mail: thethistlearchive@outlook.com)

As we approach Remembrance Day 2021, we pay our respects... In 1914 and 1939, when the nation needed men and women to serve in the country’s armed forces, football players were among those who volunteered. Partick Thistle FC were one of the many clubs whose players and former players became soldiers, sailors and airmen, and not all of them came home. This is a record of those Jagsmen who paid the ultimate price serving their country. They are listed by war & alphabetical order, with a short introduction outlining their club career, and then information on their war service. ... to The Partick Thistle Fallen →