danish jag

Another testament that Lambie is God! Haha!

There are some great stories there! Originally from Denmark, my first encounter with Thistle came in a sports magazine called Tipsbladet, which I was subscribing to at that time. The magazine was running a series of articles on relatively unknown clubs doing something spectacular. In week 28 of 2002, it was Thistle's back-to-back promotions that were the focus of quite an otherwise superficial portrait of the club. The heading of "The Thistle in Glasgow's Nice Flower Bed" was somewhat misleading and the picture of Martin Cameron winning a header against Ross County's Ian Maxwell not that spectacular, but something in there triggered an interest that this club was a bit out of the ordinary and worthwhile having a closer look at. Until then, my only glimpse of Scottish football had been when the odd Old Firm game was on telly or Aberdeen made an appearance due to having my favourite Danish team Brondby's former manager Ebbe Skovdahl in charge for a while, which the media took an interest in. All in all, not very exciting stuff. My main ways of getting into Thistle was therefore through Championship Manager and the old ptfc.net, where I gradually became part of the F5 brigade updating the page every few seconds to see if Thistle had scored. Sometimes on the odd chance, our game would be on Sportsound and I would be sitting there trying to make out what the commentators were saying, getting to grips with the Scottish language, which I struggled with even then. I got my first Thistle shirt and scarf for my birthday and the interest just grew bigger from that. After I left college, I decided to take a year out to travel. The obvious first point was to go to Glasgow, where I had booked into the student accomodation in Murano Street in late August 2006. First thing next morning was of course to go down and see Firhill for the first time. I must admit that my first impression wasn't one of greatness, I was more taken aback at the amount of litter in the streets around the stadium. My first game was against St. Johnstone and I finally saw Dick Campbell's team in action come crushing to a 5-1 defeat and a 6-0 defeat to Gretna two weeks later made me feel like a bit of a jinx to be honest, but luckily fortunes turned and one of the best experiences that season was undoubtedly the 5-2 win up at Victoria Park. Through my new job, I met my girlfriend, whose family were all Thistle fans and we all started going to the games together. However, her mum and dad soon moved to Islay and I had decided to go back to Denmark to study so Thistle was put on the back burner and I joined the F5 brigade again that soon developed into the Nomads, which I took a keen interest in as it was fans in the same situation providing the entertainment just as much as Thistle. My new course did not go as planned and the long distance relationship became a bit strained over the year so in the end, I decided to move to Glasgow again, where I then started going to the games again and doing some Nomad commentary once in a while. I also moved in with my girlfriend, who I am now engaged to with the wedding just about planned for October. We had hoped to have a Glasgow reception at Firhill, but sadly that never transpired, but even then, Thistle will definitely continue to have a place in my life. So I would like to thank (and blame at times) Soren Plovgaard for writing that article in 2002. He has no idea what he's started...

I mean the Nomads in general. I can't remember when the last newsletter was and there's not the same level of activity as there was earlier. We had the show, meet-ups, newsletter and helped bring far-flung fans together, but it all seems to have faded, sadly.

My Danish team has always been Brondby, even though they have never been my local team and I basically started out a glory hunter, when Brondby dominated the 90s and I remember fondly our ventures in Europe. Especially since the fortunes turned for the worse with turmoil in the boardroom and poor results on the park, but I have always stuck with Brondby even when my friends lost faith and started supporting FC Copenhagen. Oh and by the way, we need to get Nomads going again...

There's party politics. And then there's politics in the real world with real people that go to Firhill. Politics is not just restricted to parliaments and councils. It is so much more than that.

Well done for avoiding it then. When I say, football and politics cannot be separated, I mean that football functions in a political world, which it is not exempt from. Whether it be which values are promoted in football like supporting "Show Racism the Red Card" and the "Poppy Appeal" or how football is organised (the football authorities, Thistle BoD, Jags Trust, the application to redevelop Firhill etc), we are part of the political reality and that means that everything from the shouts of "Sack the Board" to players and fans displaying red cards is whether we like it or not, political statements. Nobody is saying that we should open up Firhill for all kinds of political stunts. The only thing I stress is that we recognise political statements as political when we encounter them instead of hiding behind age-old phrases like "keeping football and politics separate"...

I agree with the flags not being welcome at Firhill, but I don't get this constant mantra to keep football and politics seperate. They have never been seperate and always been influencing each other for the better and worse, whether we like it or not. We are fooling ourselves, if we think that the political reality just stops at the stadium gates. It needs to be appropriate though and I don't see the need in having Palestinian and Basque flags at Firhill...

I have been passed on this old Thistle photo, which I have been told is from the sixties and after a bit of search in the kit history, I guess it is from somewhere between 1967 and 1971. Davie McParland should be from what I've been told be in the front row, second from the left. Photo Sorry about the quality - uploaded via webcam.

I'll be going. I haven't been to a game since we lost in the cup to Falkirk due to working Saturdays. Need to see for myself, where we are at and if we are as rubbish as the league table suggests. I'm optimistic as always. Jags win!

If you're passionate about your beer, make sure you visit the Holyrood 9A. They do brilliant burgers as well.

I take it that's down to lack of host rather than harry wragg?

Haha, good one!

Well as you can see from the discussion, it's not that obvious.

The dialectic materialism and the analysis of history are sound enough. It is when you don't take the human being into account that the equation goes wrong, because then the dialectics turn dogmatic, the analysis turns rigid and the result is a system for the sake of the system. To me, dialectic materialism is a tool to expose structural inequalities in systems without resorting to explaining it with idealist myths, such as "the will of god", racism and individualism.

I agree that the dogmatic approach needs to be done away with, but I find Marx' analysis of capitalism to be very much relevant even today as he examines the absolute core of capitalism. That core has not changed. It is still the hunt for profit driving capitalism and limiting people's freedom. The language and approach needs to change, clearly, but you need an ideological foundation to base your politics on.

Typical useless consumerist approach to being environmentally friendly as always.

Well done, David! Glad to see he is doing well for himself!

Seen over the course of the season, I think the award for Robertson is fully justified. Always committed and putting in some good hard work even when the rest of team is performing badly. Would be sad to see him go, but would understand the decision when it comes.

Originally from Denmark, I now live in Glasgow, but still consider myself a nomad as I still remember the days of the F5 brigade and how much better we could make the match day experience for people not able to go to the games. Maybe we should have a look over one of Shuggie's old lists and see if there are new objectives to the Nomad cause that we could develop further. Will be doing my bit of HWing next season.

Well done for setting up a sub forum for the Nomads! I'll be going to the game on sat, although in a working capacity.