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Very enjoyable day out in a relaxed location. Great for those with young children, as you could wander about anywhere and the grassy bank on the far side from the stand was nicely angled to provide an excellent view. First half we were very sound defensively with Bud in goal and Ashcroft and O'Reilly at centre back mopping up everything. Reading looks a good acquisition at left back. You could see that he was an experienced player who knew what to do. Trialist right back (Cammy Logan?) also impressed and took his goal very well with a shot into the roof of the net when anything lower might have been saved or blocked. Lawless looked up for it. McKay eased himself back in to playing football with some nice touches. He was not particularly penetrating but did combine neatly with Falconer to set him up for the first goal. Main disappointments in the first half were Diack, who kept falling over and never got into the game, and Mackenzie. I was willing Zander to do well in centre midfield, but he kept losing possession. Second half was a different game entirely with mainly a different team. The young goalkeeper Cameron has a bit to do yet to become a confidence inspiring back up for Bud, and sadly was at fault for the Glenafton goal, allowing himself to be dispossessed by their striker, who trundled the ball into the net. McBeth tried to co-ordinate the defence, but there were some shaky moments with his young colleagues. Further up the park we were much sharper in midfield and attack, Stanway was very prominent in winning possession and driving the team forward, and seemed to be embracing a leadership role. Fitzpatrick had one electrifying burst where he ate up ground on a defender, but was a bit quiet apart from that. Chalmers was excellent and the go to player through whom most effective attacks were directed. To me the main and perhaps surprising encouragement was young Thomas Horn at centre forward. Unlike Diack, he gave the defence no peace and was up and at them the whole time. Took his goal brilliantly, powering past the goalkeeper and firing home confidently from a challenging angle. Unlucky not to score more. It would be great to see him really kick on this season. Not the most robust of games, just an understandably gentle easing in, but several encouraging signs to keep us all optimistic!

1. It 2.Is 3. Far 4.Too 5. Early 6. For 7. These 8. Predictions 9.Now 10. Morton

Dougie Stewart, known to many around Firhill and a lifelong supporter of The Jags, died on 17 June 2025. In truth, the Dougie so many of us knew passed away some years before that date, victim to a cruel illness which effectively ended the life of a colourful and gregarious man and left a mere shell behind. Dougie made sure that the Thistle ethos was instilled in his son Craig and now Grandson Archie both of whom are regulars in the John Lambie Stand and at away matches. Who knows, his newly arrived Granddaughter Alba may also follow them in time. We laughed and suffered in equal measures, enduring the trials and travails of following Thistle and even added trips to follow Scotland…..with similar outcomes! Dougie will be greatly missed and I’m sure the sympathy of all fellow Jags goes out to all who loved this larger-than-life character who was taken far too soon. Once a Jag, Always a Jag! Dougie's funeral is being held at 1215 on Thursday 10 July in Cardross Crematorium. Thereafter, to Firhill.

On a lighter note, a couple of decades ago, my daughter, then at school, was given a homework assignment to take an article from a newspaper and explain more about the story to the rest of the class. With perfect timing, she was able to choose an article entitled "No Rae of Sunshine at Firhill" or something similar, which told the story of Alex Rae scoring and then being sent off both as a player and a manager, and to give her own eye witness account.

Not sure how many have played but I did get talking to some German fans in The Shed many years ago. I worked in Germany in the late 80's for a short time and was interested to know how they'd managed to find themselves at Firhill. One of them had the surname Fissell and so decided to follow Thistle. He'd just named his new born son Patrick. I've told that story to my own son Eintracht, a few times.

Of course he does. Especially so when the guy everyone is moaning about is lying in a hospital bed in Mauritius. Do people seriously think that others, including Mark Wilson, haven't stepped up to help out? Can't believe the number of hand-wringing, clubs in chaos posts there are nowadays. God help us when we actually start playing games again and people have to deal with the inevitable rollecoaster season. Social media is just so febrile now - doom scrolling our lives away...

I think fans need to reflect on this too. There is a voracious and seemingly endless appetite for updates - full disclosure on everything. If there is even the slightest delay in info flowing out of the club, someone on social media makes assumptions and another baseless rumour takes hold. Yes, there is considerable scope to improve approach to communications, but sometimes things need to be kept private, and we all need to (re)learn to accept this.

https://queensparkfc.co.uk/mr-robert-reid/

Sad, sad news indeed. A class act of a man: intelligent, educated, polite, funny, sympathetic, helpful, and a greater, non-millionaire supporter of PTFC there can never have been. Thanks for the French and Latin classes, Mr Reid, and for the great chats we had in and around Firhill, and for your hilarious and entertaining Hospitality tours, which were always the highlight for those lucky enough to have attended. I doubt if he realized just how much he was treasured by so many people. RIP Condolences to all Robert's family and friends.

As FT has said, the PTWFC pledge is a minimum of £5k per season. Last year we honoured this through five £1,000 payments staggered across the season. We've made the first of these for 2025-26 already and the plan would presumably be to do the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in September, November, January and March (or thereabouts). The cumulative figures to date in terms of financial support across pledges, donations and sponsorship are: £397k to the Football Club (£170k in season 2024-25) £38k to the Youth Academy (£24k in season 2024-25) £11k to PTWFC (£7k in season 2024-25). £446k in total in just over 3 years (and significant financial support to the Club only really started properly in early 2023). The figures £170k and £7k above are higher than the respective year-long pledge totals (£150k and £5k) because of supplementary fundraising (mainly last year around the hospitality takeovers and Foundation shirt-related raffles/auctions). Additionally, the Foundation has about £55k of cash reserves and has made (cumulatively) about £7k of support to various community causes, including (indeed mainly) those spearheaded by or partnered with Jags For Good and/or the PT Charitable Trust.

Petty bugbear but it will never not annoy me that the "reduced" price for season ticket holders is an £11.50 reduction rather than a reduction by the average price per game of an ST, immediately disincentivises it.

Seems the on-line Jags' world is having a go at anything Thistle do these days!

All the best to Robert, my ex French and Latin teacher! Here's a wee story (again): Back in season 70-71 we had a late afternoon kick-off match at Stranraer (they had no floodlights), and to get there it meant I had to dog school and miss my French lesson. I went on the NW bus, if I remember correctly. Outside Stair Park, as I was waiting in the queue at the turnstyle I heard "Hello, Anderson..." and turned to see Mr Reid looking at me, as he walked with a companion towards the stand, for which he surely had a complimentary ticket. Like me, he was dogging school that afternoon! We exchanged a kind of ""We'll say no more about this" glance. We met at many matches, home and away, over the years. Two other Jags diehard teachers from the same school were Hector McLeod and Ian Woodburn.

99 and out, what a pity 😔

The fascinating new discovery of Partick Thistle twin brothers from the 1870s; a chance letter, the birth of Association football in Brechin, and Partick Thistle's first-ever match north of the Tay... Partick Thistle's pioneering twins of Brechin! →

Original poster had no idea that this had happened. It's not even related. Can't believe I'm sticking up for Bobbyhouston, who must be the most compulsively tedious poster on this site, but that's unfair criticism. Anyway, best wishes to Ian Baraclough. Get well soon.

best wishes to him as he recovers https://ptfc.co.uk/ptfc-news/ian-baraclough/

It is far too early to say as most clubs have still got considerable recruitment to do. To my mind the success of next season at this stage is about the state of clubs finances, how much recruitment they have to do and how experienced their mananager and what the club leadership is like and even that only indicates a range of where each team is likely to finish. St Johnstone and Ross county are probably best placed to compete for the league. Difficult to see them not being in the top 2. Raith and Ayr are pretty stable in terms of finances and management so probably going to be in an around the playoffs. Dunfermline have money and a decent manager but need to recruit well so again around the playoffs. All 3 teams are probably at best 3rd but at worst 7th Morton have just resolved their financial issues and having the most experienced manager in the league means they will be around mid table. I expect they will be at best 4th but no worse than 8th. Airdrie again look stable. Don't have the same turnover of players as last season so I expect them to towards mid table. Probably at best 6th and worst 9th Arbroath have a lot of optimism but they don't have many players under contract, even less who can play at championship level and have quite inexperienced co-managers. So I expect them to be around the relegation spots. At best they are 7th and at worst 10th. Queens Park have a lot of cost cutting to do with a novice manager so I expect they will also struggle. Like Arbroath at best 7th and at worst 10th We are cost cutting, have an inexperienced manager, unproven recruitment team and a board that don't look like string leaders. So more in common with Arbroath and Queens Park then the other teams in the league. Were we probably have an advantage is we still have a decent core of a starting 11 and arguably 3 of the best defenders in the league plus some pretty decent wingers so don't face the same scale o recruitment as Dunfermline, Morton, Arbroath and Ross County. So we are probably are the most difficult team to predict were we finish as we could be anywhere from 3rd to 9th. Recent actions indicate we will be at the lower end of that range but if we get our act together we could well towards the upper end.

Over and above not winning thru in the play offs the biggest disappointment for me was that the fans were unable to say goodbye to Ethan in a befitting manner.

I don’t see why Brian has to justify his decision to anyone. He applied for a job, was offered it and in the interim was offered another job which he thought was more beneficial to his future. Why all the fuss ?

Also worth remembering on the past Alex had well publicised battles with alcoholism (sadly as many have) which of course may well understandably have affected his temperament. However absolutely delighted to see that he appears to have beaten it (which is no easy task) and will have a fresh perspective nowadays as will his experience at so many different clubs. As has been mentioned he is very close to Mark Wilson as well so I think it’s an ideal choice as assistant and goes without saying I hope Mark and Alex are a great success Welcome Alex and all the best at Firhill

The decision was entirely Brian Graham's to make. These things are never easy, I'm sure he had a lot to weigh up. But he doesn't have to justify it to anyone. Good luck to him. No one can deny that he worked really hard for Thistle. He gave it everything and that's all we can ask as fans. He was a very good striker for us, and had a huge positive influence on the women's team. If he's decided it's best to move on then that's the right decision for everyone.

A mixed reception for Reading, Budinauckas and Rae. With regard to the two players they look decent and sensible signings to me. As far as Rae is concerned I think this is a positive signing. I preferred Wilson over Graham for a number of reasons that I have already expressed. Rae, though not a particularly popular individual, has always to me seemed totally committed to what he does. If we ever wanted someone to toughen up the Jags both physically and mentally, well we have that person now. Definitely a culture change in the offing at Firhill. I think Rae's qualities sit well with Wilson"s and they should make a good team. As with all signings time will tell. Must go and get my season ticket now.

Stop being reasonable. There is no place on this forum for sensible non judgemental posting like this. Patience isn’t permitted and there is no where in your post where you laid blame on a senior position at Firhill.

I do think with st Johnstone and Ross county battling it out for promotion ( no other team in the league stand a chance ) this is the time for the team to go through a transition . Feels like the core of the team that has made the play offs the last few years is breaking up and rebuild needed . Key will be getting the right mixture of youth and experience to ensure that we don’t get pulled too near the bottom - very easy in this small league - as the rebuild will take at least 1/2 years . Patience will be required by all .

My mate says the site has signed a pre contract with Ayr and from 1st July will become weareayr.net. Well was a mate of a mate but good enough for me…

From what I’ve heard (from a very good source) Massively reduced offer, weeks after he’d heard nothing and had to call club himself. Its not him going that seems the issue, it’s the fact a long serving legend at club has been left in limbo and treated pretty poorly is the issue.

Not itk and won't speculate about why Graham left. But when BBG first came to Firhill i could never have dreamt what he would do for Thistle both on and of the park. A great player for us and took the women's team to a couple of top 6 finishes in the premier league and a cup final, he will always be a legend at Firhill, but now it is time to move on. Let's hope that we can find at least one player in the not to distant future that can replace him.

Not sure I follow the thinking that says 'it was ok for the club to be in a mess the problem was telling people' Barraclough's injury is completely unforeseen, a private matter and equally would have demanded the attention of the board and the staff since it occurred about a week ago. However not setting budgets, poor comms, no strips, lack of plans for 150th year etc are all issues that have pre-dated last week and equally are not related to the football department. We have also had issues in the football department that occurred pre-Barraclough's injury such as why was our head coach recruitment so protracted? What is happening with Brian Graham? We have a long path to correct the situation but the first step is admitting there are problems. I can't believe that any of the current board weren't sighted on these issues or supporters opinions prior to TJF but it appears as though they only sprung into life when TJF went public which gives the impression that they were living in their own wee world. So personally, I fully agree with TJF's actions, a strong fans body needs to be able to hold the club board to account and raise fans concerns as it appears the only way in which standards will improve.

Nollyoaks?

Seeing as the fella is on his honeymoon I'm not sure the title thread is totally appropriate. Or maybe a wee bit too appropriate? Eta after today's news please ignore the above frivolous comment.

This time last week, we couldn't even spell his name, never mind having a picture or a bio to speak of! Today, we're delighted to present 1930s winger FRED HINCHLIFFE whose grandson was Craig Hinchliffe, Thistle goalie from around 15 years ago... Fred Hinchliffe →

Bannigan should be thanked for his service and shown the door. We don’t need someone who can only pass a ball sideways or backwards. Not to mention the lost head moments in crucial games.

Agree with @lady-isobel-barnett that we can be quite fixated on formations such as 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2 etc when in reality they are only really starting positions. From what what I have seen in the 2 friendlies so far Wilson is changing the nature of how the fullbacks play. We have for the last few seasons been used to seeing overlapping fullbacks when we have possession so that it creates overloads in wide area's. To my mind it was noticeable against Glenafton and against ICT that Wilson is looking for the fullbacks to either underlap or be more central and almost become the midfield allowing the likes of Stanway and Crawford to make runs into the box and get beyond the strikers. In theory pulls a wide defender into central area's and leaves our wingers with more space and a 1v1 against the opposition fullback which in turn makes us less predictable in attack and less reliant on a striker for goals. Second half of the ICT game showed this particularly when Lowe and Logan were our fullbacks. Logan is very good at making underlapping runs, Lowe is pretty good on the ball and able to pick a pass and put in a decent cross. Harkness tried to play as an overlapping fullback putting more pressure on our weak midfield and whilst Reading was trying to underlap Fitzpatrick he's not as good as Low on the ball and got caught in possession a couple of times. So if we are looking at formations against ICT we looked more like a 2-3-2-3 when we had the ball with occasional periods where either Logan, Stanway or Crawford would go further forward and we end up with almost 5 up front but people finding space in the defensive channels rather than just out wide and overloading the fullback. Downside is that if an opposition can break quickly they will find space in wide areas which will in turn mean our centre backs getting pulled wide. So might not be the worst thing to have a centre back play as CDM who can drop in central in that scenario and immediately have 3 at the back. Where I think the issues are is that I'm not convinced Reading can play in that system as he looks more like a wingback who can carry the ball but struggles with delivery and on defensive duties. Low looks better in possession but still not got the physicality required for the defensive work. Whilst we become less reliant on a striker to score goals we need a striker with better movement to create spaces for the advanced midfielders to exploit. For our wingers to exploit the 1v1's requires them to have a few tricks which I think only Chalmers and Lawless truly have as Fitzpatrick and MacKay are more about pace. Conversely we need the wingers to have pace to cover back quickly and Lawless doesn't have that. I would also add that we will be asking O'Reilly and Ashcroft to do a lot more quick changes of direction so we might well find they start to pick up more injuries than last season. I like Dolan and I think he can cope with first team football but we might still need another centre half for cover

£24 for match entry for two, 2 pies, a poke of chips and 2 bottles of water. Bargain! And a decent game in lovely sunshine. Lee Ashcroft employing the John Lambie school of motivation . 😁

Someone on P&B says RB is Jack Harkness. Rangers lad. Not the Torchwood guy.

Presumably the AI bot was not fed any JagZone interviews or it would have scattered the odd "Listen" here and there.

Thanks for that. To me that article is full of gobbledygook: buzzwords, verbosity, and mangled meaning. I STILL don't know what the "uniquely hybrid" model really means. At least now I know what it doesn't mean (I think): it doesn't mean that the women's team will be a mix of full-time and part-time players, and it doesn't mean that the women's team will be a mix of women and men who want to be known as women.

Looks OK to me (though I prefer hoops).

It has been a good addition in my opinion but when you put something out you need to make sure it is followed up. The Fan/Media Event at Greaves - to be confirmed by Friday 20th June, yet Friday comes and goes without anything about this.

I am happy to give Alex Rae a clean slate. He does seem to have calmed down and is able to laugh at himself, which is always a healthy trait. HIs midfield experience should be especially useful and relevant. I do not think he would have signed up unless he thought that we were going to be reasonably competitive this season.

Do you not stop to think why he never took the job when he was offered it? I'd rather still have Brian than most of the circus off of the park We are a shambles. From the chairman down.

Thank you for the 99 goals Brian.

I've just stumped up.

Would it not have been better for TJF to simply have said they were meeting the Board to discuss areas of concern and issues raised by their members, rather than a detailed list, which was obviously going to get leaked and shared.

Can we do this at the end of the season, or possibly end of 26/27. It is way too early to come to any conclusions one way or the other.

Is that not Thistle every season at this point ?

Looks like you cannot "like" or otherwise react to an Admin post! This is just to say "Noted and Understood", and "Many thanks and much appreciated".