douglas clark

I'm thinking of sending away for a shirt with 'T Hutton' on the back of it. Any advice, agony aunties?

Dear Jordanhill Jag, There is little or no likelyhood of SEVCO FC being parachuted into SFL1. Indeed they may have to apply to an unscrupulous amateur league. Forget them. If Thistle dies, they will be part of the death of the whole of Scottish football as a professional sport. You might have noticed, in passing, that the years are passing for you too. Soon enough you will arrive at the sunny uplands of being 65+. Then, you too, will be part of the grey pound, a growing section of society at large. Perhaps Thistle will, indeed, be supported by the greys, but they are a growing sector of our society and you should not go around assuming that they are not. So. Consider this. Rangers are not allowed to play football at all. A few of their supporters that feel a gap in their Saturday afternoons, Friday nights, Sunday mornings, whatever, decide to back the Jags intead. Instantly, you get your younger support, you get gate money. Because, of all the teams that are likely to benefit from the demise of The Glasgow Rangers, Thistle is best placed to take advantage of that. But stop. Do you really, really want that?

Gordie, This guy is a wind up merchant And you know that, how? I have been a person with rights to comment on here for an awful long time. As far as I recall, I haven't felt the need to stand up for the jags in almost all that time. When I do, the likes of you try to do me down. Well, Gordie, I think you do us down, so I do. I think you are a bit of a pretendy jag.

Do you wan't to go to heaven when you die? You must wear a thistle scarf a thistle tie, You must wear a Thistle bonnet, With **** the Old Firm on it, If you want to go to heaven if you die. Does that matter to you? I can see why it might not. You might be incredibly young and see it as the nonsense. It is. It is the conceit of North West Glasgow and environs. If you are a few years older you probably went away and supported the Rugger. Nowadays you might be middle aged and a bit thick.

No, it isn't. The minute you give up the right to express yourself - and please don't mess with me on 'Fire' in theatres - you lose the right to express yourself. I repeat, f**k the Pope and f**k the Queen is a political statement , not a sectarian one. It seems to me that that ought to matter? Apparently not. Being disgusting little chums with the 'Old Firm' is apparently what we are about now. Oh! Joy!

I am obviously in a minority. It is perfectly clear that freedom of speech issues are a bit more important to me and a bit pathetic to most of the Thistle support. As evidenced by Sandbank Boy, Dark Passenger and, apparently, Honved. Doing the ususal - if I won the lottery - I would argue in any court in the land, that f**k the Pope and f**k the Queen is an entirely political statement. I would win. 'Cause it clearly is. But you need the money. Which is probably why Sandbank Boy, Dark Passenger and Honved just lurve their negativity. They are not wrong, they are just lacking money and are just a tad majoritarian.... Or short as planks.

I am more than a little concerned that Partick Thistle songs are being caught up in a catch all sectarian sweep. You may think this is a bit rude of me, but I have said this on Bella Caledonia: bella, But what are you saying? Is it OK for Partick Thistle supporters to sing: ‘f**k the Pope and f**k the Queen, we are the Partick Thistle’ or to take that relatively trivial but clearly political point and have it re-defined as ‘hate speech’? It is clearly oppositional to the mainstream(s) but, I, personally, do not see it as ‘hate speech’. I think it is free speech. But the big guns are out for us. If they are not allowed their prejudices, then free speech by others must be suppressed too. For that is what a majority does, isn’t it? It is all very well to allow all national identities, as you say. It is completely not OK to assume that identities that see themselves as other than nationalist should be caught up in that nonsense. I am more than a tad cheesed off that my non-nationalist identity – as a Partick Thistle supporter – has become the subject of a nationalist debate. The discussion can be found here: http://www.wearethistle.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/4441-todays-game/ Starting around page 3. Perhaps this is wrong of me, but I completely disagree with Dark Passenger. And I disagree with the Police even attempting to say that one of our songs should be reported to the PF. The idea that replacing 'the' with 'your' makes any sort of sense whatsoever is beyond me.

It seems to me that we assume too much sense in a Board of Directors. Where was the 'sense' displayed by the banks that brought us to our knees? Just saying that that is a larger issue that kind of supports the idea that BoDs are not saints exactly. But they do, generally have an interest in keeping their business's going, it is after all a status or revenue stream for them. I seem to recall that, back in the 1920's, the entire idea of 'The Jags' was treated as an entertainment media, much like Barnums' Circus and 'The movies'. That was the competition for a working mans shilling. People made money out of it. Exploited it even. And here we are now, nearly a century on, still unable to accept that people that do put money into the club - pay off debts, try to keep it alive, are a tad worse than people like you and me that just pay money at the turnstile for entertainment? --------------------------------------- I think the assumed model that you are all working on is nothing to do with Dundee or Falkirk, it has to do with ES Clydebank. Where I do think a club was ruined. Perhaps deliberately. I do not think that that is happening at our club. Sorry guys. It has not been typical of the death of clubs in Scotland, generally it has been down to a lack of a person(s) of means. I think we should do two things: Firstly we should remind the Sultan of Brunei of some scottish and preferably Thistle connection. As we did, away back at the original Save the Jags mad and desperate times... Secondly, we should all buy enormous numbers of Euro Lottery tickets. Because, realistically, we do not otherwise have influence. _________________________________________ Or, you have to shout in the face of any Board member, or majority shareholder: "We are Thistle! We are! We are!" And see what reaction you get. I think that would solve it for us. It's in their eyes.

I know it is too early, I know it is too soon. But we won the League Cup back then with a very youthful team. Scottish Cup about due to come around again? 1921? 2011?

I expect to get blown out of the water for this but football in general has become the plaything of the rich. Who amongst us would complain if the current Chelsea owner repeated the Ken Bates era at Firhill? It'd be chump change to him. I do not think that clubs should be allowed to live beyond the income they generate, and that includes every-one. It should be a point deductible matter if an owner spends a penny of their own money on buying a player, or giving the club a break financially. Harsh? Yes. But it is supposed to be a sport, not an ego trip.