Sivad

Will VAR be in operation?

Longest journey for a Scottish Cup tie was 360 miles each way from Wick to Kirkcudbright, St Cuthbert Wanderers v Wick Academy, 27 September 2008.

Watching the Wimbledon final on Sunday, Mrs Sivad exclaimed "There's the King of Spain". I thought, that's not Gerry Britton! Good luck to Gerry. Few people have been associated with Partick Thistle for such a long time.

First up is Arbroath v Dundee United on Friday 4 August. Optimists will want a home win, pessimists an away win. I'll settle for a draw.

Professor Gordon McInnes had a distinguished medical career, which is documented elsewhere. He was a leading authority on hypertension, possibly inspired by being a lifelong follower of Partick Thistle. At 6 foot six inches, "Big Gordon" was a larger than life character, who did not suffer fools gladly, unless they were wearing red and yellow. He was never slow to voice his opinions on players, and, particularly, officials. He was present at the unforgettable League Cup triumph in 1971, when we were thrown out of the Aragon for celebrating too noisily. Exactly a year earlier, Gordon drove a carload of Jags fans all the way to Brechin for a Second Division match. In front of a crowd of 668, young Alan Rough lost his footing on the slope at one end of the pitch, and a shot that would have sailed over the bar on a level surface found the top corner for the only goal of the game. Experiencing such highs and lows enabled Gordon to develop a healthily sceptical view of the team's performances, and in later years he could claim to have "seen it all". Gordon died a few days before the Dingwall disaster, but it is safe to say that he would not have been surprised at the outcome.

It's perhaps worth remembering that those who may be signing elsewhere are no longer Partick Thistle players. They are free agents, a consequence of the club not having the resources to offer them contract extensions that they might have found attractive.

Things are never that bad that they can't get worse. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65810610. It wasn't any old bus, it was the East Kilbride Partick Thistle supporters bus, on which I travelled to Dingwall. After dropping some fans in Maryhill, the bus was on its way to the motorway when a man suddenly appeared in front of it. The driver swerved and braked, but could not avoid hitting him, fatally. Police interviews followed, so it was three o'clock by the time I got home. So what had been a football tragedy became a real one. Somehow the result of a football match seems less important now.

Apologies. Going by my recollection of the TV commentary, and my own failing eyesight.

One hat trick for Graham, last season at Inverness.

Think the lettuce might have a better chance up against Gareth Southgate.

I feel some sympathy for players who are hung out to dry by being pitched into a game like this, expected to be up to speed with little or no match practice. Some of them may still have a role to play before the season is out. It's time there was a proper reserve league in Scotland.

Tried three times, failed. "Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later." Forget it.

Is Roughie the only Partick Thistle player ever to make the honours list? Perhaps a more appropriate honour would have been Knight of the Thistle. I thought there was one for Muirhead, too, till I realised it was for Eve.

How do you get rid of a monarchy? It seems to me that there are three possibilities: 1. Violent revolution. This is Great Britain, we don't do things like that. 2. The ruling monarch decides to quit. No sign of that happening any time soon. In any case, as when Edward VIII did it, there is always someone can be found to come off the bench to take over. 3. Election of a political party pledged to abolish the monarchy. As noted above, all the major political parties in Britain currently support continuation of the monarchy. Perhaps we should consider why this is so. It is because to go into an election with a manifesto promising to abolish the monarchy would bring certain defeat. This is because all the signs are that the overwhelming majority of the British public continue to support a system that has a head of state that is above party politics, as opposed to the prospect of eleven years of an all-powerful President Thatcher or President Blair.

Perhaps it's a matter of concern that the opposition manager tonight is none other than Big Wull! Queens benefited from a new manager bounce when Wullie Gibson replaced Alan Johnston a couple of months ago, mainly due to Aidan Fitzpatrick. Then Fitzpatrick got injured, and results took a turn for the worse. Defeat tonight would leave Queens odds-on for the drop, which makes them all the more dangerous.