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In the circumstances, a decent last half hour and in normal circumstances a good point earned against a decent Falkirk side. Banzo's introduction drastically improved the midfield presence and really opened the game up for us in the Falkirk third. Our record so far this season against the teams above us isn't actually that bad. It's been our failure to do the business against Morton, Accies and Raith that's cost us so far. 1 point from 9 in what should really have been 7 minimum.

The missing components from last year are McMillan and Lawless. Without pacy threat down the right it doesn’t take other teams much to close down service to BBG.

If I had to guess, it’s because both their home and away kits clash with our home kit. And it’s also possible (though I genuinely don’t know and am guessing here) that our merch deal might stipulate that the away kit is worn a minimum number of times. So makes more sense to wear it when there’s a risk of a kit clash even if it’s a home fixture. Wouldn’t surprise me if we end up wearing the away kit at least 4 times against Livi this season, home and away, for one or both of the above reasons.

When you order (if you're only ordering one) we take by default what your name is on our membership database. If you want a different name, or are ordering multiples, you can either put it in the "order notes" what name you want or email us the names. We've also been using a form emailed out to folk every so often asking them to confirm or update the order info we hold. So belt and braces!

Fair point. You also finished 2nd in the league and the quarter-final of the Scottish Cup though (which is significant for additional prize-money) and would have made a loss if you'd finished 3rd or 4th (based on the prize-money differentials).

I would just note on this that, but for Old Firm game revenue, Morton's financial picture as regards profitability looked broadly the same as Thistle's in 2023-24. Any cut in player budget comes with a commensurate risk of a significant drop in prize-money. So, for example, going from a £1.1 million player budget (which is ballpark for what the modal team in the Championship had last year) to, say, an £800k player budget, sees any savings totally wiped out if you finish (say) 6th instead of 3rd. So yes, it's an option to cut the player budget. But it doesn't necessarily get you any closer to being sustainably break-even without cup runs, player sales or a much strengthened commercial operation. Thistle have been hobbled, in part, by some frankly undersold key commercial opportunities from the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, which were multi-year and therefore could not in the short term be improved upon. I remember watching back the Morton finance update earlier in the year and they emphasised the impact of the Dalrada and Hungry Squirrel sponsorships, which almost single-handedly transformed your finances from being apocalyptic to respectable. We do occupy a league where key income sources are volatile and where the baseline is unsympathetic to sustainable full-time football. When a significant proportion of those are concessionary and youth season ticket holders, it's very difficult. There are zero teams in the current Scottish Championship who broke-even or made a profit in recent seasons without (a) a lucrative cup run (b) some form of underwriting by their owners or (c) being in the Premiership when they did it. They haven't said that, in fairness. They've said it presents a risk. A season that sees Thistle relegated to the third tier of Scottish Football, with its cashflow position as it is, would threaten its survival even if we went part-time.

If, last season, the Club had spent zero pounds and zero pence on the Academy and Women's team, the losses would still have been six figures. Neither of them are why the Club is still losing money. If anything because of how things were structured in previous seasons, the Club's financial picture looked better than it really was because the Academy was paying the apprentice's salaries, which in reality should have been on the Club's own books.

Yes, I think we wouldn't be facing a replay in that scenario.

Lots of loud statements, probably a public apology, and no replay or compensation.

It's not that they didn't think about it. It's that they didn't do it. If we changed the rules of sporting competitions mid-way through every time they threw up an injustice you'd have people howling with derision. Indeed, that's exactly what happened when the member clubs decided to end the 2019-20 season early, relegating us, Hearts and Stranraer based on a new rule about points per game. You can't have it both ways! It's irrelevant that they specifically didn't have games. The rules against replays, across the competitions, is founded on that rationale. We don't just change the rules mid-competition because of a f**k-up. It's a completely different situation but it's still not an "of course not". Clubs should generally be concerned if the governing body is wasting their money on administrative or legal matters instead of pumping it into prize-money and youth development grants.

I'm not sure that a hush-money loan made on a no-fault basis, which one of the most corrupt organisations on the planet made and then wrote-off, is the example of sporting integrity you're looking for here!

Must admit I think any calls for a replay or compensation are wide of the mark and totally unrealistic in the context of any professional sport. A replay: (a) Unfair on Motherwell who did nothing wrong - why should they have to play an extra game because of a mistake by the officials? (b) Not provided for in the competition rules (which everyone signs-up to when they participate) (c) Logistically impractical - with fixture congestion there's a reason we've phased-out replays in domestic cup competitions in preference for extra time and penalties at the first time of asking (d) Could, paradoxically, lead to Thistle losing the replayed match, finishing 3rd, and getting less prize-money And as for compensation: (a) Has to be funded from somewhere - so who pays? (b) Not provided for in the competition rules (which everyone signs-up to when they participate) (c) In practice would reduce the resources available to the governing bodies to support their administrative function, potentially increasing the risk of administrative errors! The whataboutery of "they'd have kicked us out and fined us if we'd fielded an ineligible player" is a total red herring. That's a compliance failure by a club resulting in an unearned sporting advantage. These punishments exist as a form of deterrence against ignoring the rules, by making the consequences deliberately harsh and disproportionate to the sporting advantage that can be gained from flouting and hoping no one notices. These rules have the macro effect of making Clubs do their homework and admin properly, creating a system of player registration that all of the clubs can trust. It helps to maintain a predictable rules-based order: a pre-requisite for fairness. By comparison, compensation for mistakes by governing officials or referees are a terrible idea if you want greater consistency. Firstly, officials and administrators aren't participants in the competition; their role is fundamentally different. In the absence of evidence of deliberate malice, the competition only works if we trust that they're not setting out to put their thumb on the scales. No one is seriously suggesting this was a deliberate attempt to disadvantage Thistle. It was a f**k-up, not a conspiracy. Secondly, there is no evidence that the quality of administrators/officials is responsive to punitive sanctions, let alone financial redress for wronged participant teams. So it's not supporting consistency in decision-making. The biggest deterrent against this being repeated is the attention it has gathered and it being incredibly tinpot and embarrassing. If the Clubs agree to a set of rules that makes provision for compensation for administrative or officiating errors, and are willing to fund it, fair enough. But their incentives in aggregate will always be against this. They want to maximise the amount of SPFL/SFA resources that go back to the Clubs in general and that only happens if they minimise the governing bodies' operating costs. A scheme of compensation is robbing Peter to pay Paul, except you've got 41 Peters and 1 Paul in every dispute. I think it's incredibly telling that there isn't a single professional sport in existence that has a system of financial compensation for participants adversely impacted by administrative errors or officiating mistakes. This isn't football circling the wagons: it's baked-into the incentives in any organised sport. Edit: to tidy up bold font.

Find me a footballer in this division who would turn down a 30% pay rise at a rival club, any time in the last deade, and it's pretty much "Kris Doolan" and that's it.