Don Kneelcaster

Top Four prediction for tier two in 2023/24: 1. ICT 2. Dundee Utd 3. Thistle 4. Queens Park

Page 1876, the number which represents the year PTFC came into existence, 147 years ago.

Last game of league season at Dundee United! Mmmmm!

Why the manufacturers don’t use classic strips from the past as their template, as Thistle’s did last season, I don’t know. But, at least it’s a chance to save money for the discerning fan!

I was recently writing on here about my distaste for a lot of contemporary football shirts and I used Celtic as an example of a club who usually don’t stray too far away from their classic green-white hooped home shirt. Then, lo and behold today comes the latest 2023/24 offering! This looks perhaps the most leftfield creation Celtic have ever signed up to for a home strip in their history. To me, with its bubbly (described as stained glass) hoops which look as if they are rhythmically swaying about, you wonder if the creator was perhaps using 1960s acid-dropping psychedelia as the catalyst for this effort.. Either that or they’d been imbibing some sort of hallucinogenic mind-altering chemical themselves! What a disaster-described as ‘a modern twist’ in the sales blurb! ‘Twisted’ certainly!

Craig Brown was a successful Scotland manager, but he was also a quietly spoken thoughtful man and dealt with the job in a similarly low-key matter of fact way. He was the international team’s longest serving manager too, which probably says it all. Serious and accomplished when it came to explaining things to the media, he also had a sense of humour, with a twinkle in his eye at times (which I picture when I think of him!) Not a ‘big’ personality, as some managers, he left it to his teams to do the ‘talking’ on the park. He said, “I hope I will be remembered for (through his teams) playing the game fairly and properly.” (Not something that lots of managers are most concerned with nowadays, unfortunately!) Condolences to his family and friends on their loss. DH

They can put up as many placards, signs and banners as they like but no Thistle supporter (or likely any other football fan) will refer to it as “The Wire Stadium at Firhill”. The only ones who will are going to be the Jagzone match commentator and pundit, anyone on the PA system at home matches and any PTFC staff, interviewed by the media. The nonsense surrounding sponsorship gets more ridiculous by the year. But, of course when cash is at stake…..!

When you look at the size of the crowds attending Thistle, Thirds and Clyde matches back then, it was a good time for football.

Yes, well I was thinking of my own personal awareness of those six Glasgow sides from the very early sixties. My dad was the archetypal neutral and he’d open his fixture booklet and say, “Now, I wonder what would be a good game to go to on Saturday.” In those days, there was usually two or three games going on in Glasgow. Before, I became a Jags fan, I’d been to lots of different grounds watching five of those six Glasgow sides (but not Queens Park.) ”Losing one more wouldn’t hurt.” I felt for a couple of Third Lanark supporters I knew back in the day when the ‘Hi-Hi’ folded. And my uncle had been a keen supporter before he emigrated. When you’re team gets relegated, that can be upsetting and unpleasant but, when they disappear altogether, that’s something else. I met the recognised authority on Third Lanark Athletic Club, Bert Bell, once at the National Scottish Football Museum, at Hampden Park. A very interesting man to talk to and unlike perhaps some other ex-Thirds fans, he never started to follow any other club after his team disappeared. At the time, the ‘Save The Jags’ campaign began in the late nineties, it looked as if Thistle might be the next Glasgow football casualty. I somehow don’t think any Jags fans back then at that time would have thought “losing one more (Glasgow club) wouldn’t hurt”!

I was at this match and it stood out because, back then, we had a genuine living, breathing rivalry between ourselves and the Bullywee. Also, the emphatic scoreline was more than a a bit of a pleasant surprise. Matches between the two clubs were usually much closer back then. In fact Clyde reached third place in the top tier in the later 60s and would have been playing in Europe in the Inter Cities Fairs Cup (equivalent of UEFA Cup), had it not been for the fact that Rangers took that spot as only one team was allowed to enter that competition per city. That was very harsh on Clyde. Back then, I wouldn’t have cared, but now, in a more mellow more charitable frame of mind, I think it was really bad luck. In 1969, Clyde would feature v Celtic in a Scottish cup semi. Clyde, at that time were a very decent top tier side but circumstances outwith their control, combined to make things progressively more difficult for them as time went on. Now, they’re in the fourth tier, just above the non-league clubs and I certainly don’t envy them. But, thinking back to the fact Third Lanark disappeared off the Scottish football map completely the year before-in 1967-makes anyone realise, when their team is near the bottom, nothing is guaranteed. Now, I hope they survive and continue as one of the six original Glasgow sides, only five now being in existence.

Well, you’re half right!

We have to hope then-you say you are “convinced” -that this “completely different set of people” ultimately do things differently than the previous set of people. But, at the moment, we are NOT a fan-owned club in line with St Mirren or Motherwell so until or unless that’s achieved, we have to … wait and see. You seem to have a lot of ‘certainty’. Any, thoughts about ‘when’ genuine fan ownership (on a par with St Mirren or Motherwell etc) might be finally achieved?

Yes, but the key words are “turned out to be.” For a long time, Thistle fans and just about everybody else who knew something about it, expected JLow, 3BCs, The Thistle board to give the shares to TJF. Then later after further negotiations with a new TJF board there was hope rather than expectation. But, finally they were given to another group which popped up out of nowhere which had never even been mentioned. Then, there was shock combined with anger, a sense of betrayal and yes, a profound belief amongst the fans, TJF etc we had been lied to. My feeling overall surrounding raising this issue here, is how can we stop what ultimately happened previously, happening again? TJF have a lot of money which is being paid as subscriptions by PT fans who are members of TJF. The club and individuals who are not necessarily members of TJF want that money, which has been offered by TJF at a time when PTFC is in a financial pickle. But, when money is available and desperately needed, sometimes people will say or/and agree to anything easily to get it. My point is, how can we be certain we aren’t having ‘the wool pulled over our eyes’ a second time?

“This model is far from maturity and it isn’t (as) tidy…..…fan ownership promise……..we are…a(n) partner” Yes, I understand you are “convinced” that those on the….board are serious about delivering on the fan ownership promise, but didn’t you previously at one time think the same about J Low and that previous board? And that came as quite a shock at the time. Of course, the present board want the JFL subscription money, but they haven’t delivered true fan ownership of PTFC yet, which is my point. You believe they will. We will see in due course. In the meantime…..

The Jags Foundation (TJF) was brought into being for a specific purpose. This was to be the democratically-run, accountable PTFC supporters organisation, which would be the repository for the 55% majority shareholding (given by the late Colin Weir) to allow fan ownership of the club. Since it was first instituted, a lot of water has gone under the bridge but the model which we currently have does not (to me) conform to the genuine models of fan ownership seen at eg St Mirren FC or Motherwell FC or other fan owned clubs. Yet, we know (because they’ve told us) that TJF has earmarked large amounts of TJF subscription funds to be given to PTFC now and in the future. Why was this money, promised by TJF/given to the club-supporters’ money-not offered conditionally on the club becoming a genuinely fan-owned club on the lines of those other fan-owned clubs? After all, previously, when J Low turned down TJF as a repository for the shareholding, she said, “The club neither wants or needs your money.” (And the subtext was , ‘Neither do we want you!’) Now we know that the part of her statement about “need” was false, but surely the supporters still seek what was wanted at the very start of the process, ie genuine fan ownership. And, having this money to offer, surely provides the way to achieve this. Yet, no changes are being made (as far as I’m aware) to the current fan ownership model (if you can call it a ‘model’).