The Thistle Archive

Is Brian Graham eyeing-up a post-war league record with the Jags? Check this week's 'Stats Watch' and more... Thistle 2 Morton 1 →

What a photo by Donald Wilson! 3 video options for all of us to agonize over / enjoy this week, and most of the post-QP updates are now in place at the Archive → THE RETURN OF THE 20 GOALS-A-SEASON STRIKER! ● Tomi Adeloye is the first Jag to score in two games at Hampden in the same season since super Maurice Johnston did so in 1982-83. ● Brian Graham converts his 4th successive penalty, bringing his ratio (70%) back onto historical par (70.2%). His last 3 have levelled the match at 2-2. See our list of Every penalty taken. ● Brian Graham scores in a 5th consecutive competitive game for Thistle, and is the first to do so since Kris Doolan (6) in 2016. The club-record (8) lies with Scott McLean, set in 2000. ● Brian Graham becomes the first Jag since George Smith (1958-1960) to hit the 20 competitive goals mark in back-to-back seasons, an excellent achievement. See our Top Scorers per season page for a flavour. ● Kris Doolan's Thistle are 7 competitive games without a win, the longest run since October 2020 (11), under Ian McCall. ongoing sequences: ● 55 consecutive competitive appearances for Steven Lawless, 18th Feb 2023 to date, a new personal best. (Longest run since: Blair Spittal - 57 games, 31st Mar 2018 to 4th May 2019. Club-record: Johnny Jackson - 313 games, 28th Aug 1926 to 25th Mar 1933.)

Most of post-United match updates now in place at the Archive, including the first 'Scrapbook' tab on a match hub for a number of years. Like Lawless and Graham we're on a bit of a run in terms of Video Highlights, now 101-in-a-row, almost 2 years-not-out! There are three video productions to savour (so far) this week. Don't miss 'The Story of the Match' video from DUTV, it's absolutely stunning... Thistle 1 United 1 → CONSISTENT LAWLESS & GRAHAM ● Referee Matthew MacDermid (who refused to send off either of Docherty or Moult for dirty play) takes charge of just his 4th Thistle match, yet 3 of them have been versus Dundee United this season. ● Steven Lawless reaches 54-not-out in competitive action, a new personal best, and the longest run of any Thistle player in the last 5 years. ● Brian Graham scores after 115 secs, but it's only his second-quickest goal as a Jag, having netted in 73 secs against Ayr United in September 2023. ● Brian Graham's goal means that he has now scored in a 14th consecutive month for Thistle in competitive action, extending his unique club-record. ● For the first time, Brian Graham scores in a 4th consecutive game for Thistle, albeit he matched this on a personal level in July 2021 (having missed a game in-between). The club-record (8) lies with Scott McLean, set in November 2000. ● 51-goal Partick Thistle remain top scorers in the League and 15-goal Brian Graham once again moves to outright top scorer in the Championship. ● Thistle go 6 competitive games without a win, the longest winless run under Kris Doolan. ongoing sequences: ● 54 consecutive competitive appearances for Steven Lawless, 18th Feb 2023 to date, a new personal best. (Longest run since: Blair Spittal - 57 games, 31st Mar 2018 to 4th May 2019. Club-record: Johnny Jackson - 313 games, 28th Aug 1926 to 25th Mar 1933.)

Hi Robert, William here. As my colleague Jack will testify, we're never done going up and down the newspaper archives for all 6,000+ matches. Then, just to torture ourselves, we'll think of something else and go and do it all again!!! The latest quest is to find all the kick-off times, which is why we landed on that. Normally moving so fast that we don't stop to capture reports but that caught the eye and it just had to be grabbed!

Sure, you can always refer to the individual manager's pages where we break down the game list one-by-one and you can also see more appropriate comparison tables in regards to levels (albeit the current manager is only updated annually)... Davie McParland →

anyone we know?

Exactly one year on, and KRIS DOOLAN is shoulder to shoulder with Davie McParland in terms of the first 50 competitive games...

As always, we live in hope!

Ahead of their big Scottish Cup Quarter Final tie on Friday, we're delighted to present our latest permanent pages to the Thistle Archive, profiling the main Partick Thistle youth team, per below. We'd like to do more for all of the teams who represent Partick Thistle, but time and data constraints dictate that it's not possible to compile all of the historical season-by-season lists. As far as our youth teams go, we've at least made the effort to list full results for our top level youth team for the latest two seasons, as well as their full results history for the Scottish Youth Cup (1985 to date) and the short-lived SFL Youth Cup (2006 to 2010). With special thanks to the players, coaches and parents who got in touch to help complete the goals data! 2023-24 (Youth - Under 18s) → - The eleventh season of the Thistle Weir Youth Academy with results, line-ups and scorers. The page includes a 'Goalscorers' tab… 2022-23 (Youth - Under 18s) → - The tenth season of the Thistle Weir Youth Academy with results, some line-ups and all scorers. The page includes tabs for 'Goalscorers' and 'CAS Performance U-18s League Table'… Partick Thistle in the Scottish Youth Cup → - The Scottish Youth Cup is run by the SFA and usually played by the U-18 age groups. Thistle have entered in 36 out of 40 seasons since inception in 1983-84, and the complete results history is listed here… Partick Thistle in the SFL Youth Cup → - The SFL Youth Cup was ran by the Scottish Football League for a dozen or so seasons, from the early 2000s, and there were competitions for a few different age groups. As far as the top level (U-19) goes, we know of Thistle's participation in at least three different seasons, as profiled here… Match Lists (Youth) → - a brand new sub-menu page focused on the 4 new youth pages at-a-glance… p.s. if anyone can source a better league table for 2022-23 please do get in touch →

^ Thanks PTD, always good to find an angle like that, and a good reminder that TTA is open for anyone to get involved, as the website says... If you've written an original article on Partick Thistle and you'd like to give it a permanent home on the internet, then this is the place for you. Re-publishing of old works or first-time presentations are equally welcome. Simply send us in your copy via our contact page on Word or a PDF, and we'll take care of the online formatting. Meantime, folks can enjoy two Partickles featuring John Blair's goal... The Class Of '21 - John Blair Who put the ball in the Rangers net? #2 - John Blair And a brand new 'Partickle' is out today... League Cup Glory 2010

With 3 huge cup-ties ahead in the next 9 days for the men, the women and the top youth team (all second favourites) we look back to a glory run in 2010... a poignant tale which puts football into perspective whilst reminding us that favourites don't always win... ... this is the bittersweet story of heartbreak and glory for Kieran Burns and Thistle, and the camaraderie of a fitba' team... League Cup Glory 2010 →

Most of the post-United updates now in place... experimental new match hub (slight) re-design → A DOUBLE MILESTONE ● 22-year-old Aidan Fitzpatrick becomes the 200th Partick Thistle player to hit the 100 competitive appearances mark. He's the youngest to do so since 21-year-old James Penrice hit the mark in November, 2020. ● Kevin Holt and Tony Watt of Dundee United make it back-to-back hat-tricks for Dundee United versus Partick Thistle. In competitive action, such an occurrence has only been seen twice against Thistle in the last 50 years; in the springtime of 1982 Davie Dodds scored back to back hat-tricks for Dundee United and early in 1974 Donald Ford and Drew Busby did likewise for Hearts. Historically, there's now been ten streaks of two in total, and two streaks of three (Rangers 1898-1899 and Celtic 1898-99). ● Dundee United's last 3 hat-tricks have all been registered against Partick Thistle (Watt 2023, Holt 2023 & Shankland 2020). Bizzarely, this applies to 5 out of their last 8, a run which started back in 2013. ● Partick Thistle have never registered a 2nd tier win at Tannadice, now with 5 attempts since 2018. ● At the halfway point in the league, Thistle have conceded 30 goals in 18 games (relegation form) yet remain clear in 3rd place. This is due to the extra-ordinary number of high scoring games, with the combined ratio totalling 3.556 goals-per-game. You need to rewind back to 1900-01 (3.682 gpg) to see such a high total in a second tier season. ongoing sequences: ● 44 consecutive competitive appearances for Steven Lawless, 18th Feb 2023 to date. (Longest run since: Jack McMillan - 52 games, 9th Jul 2022 to 4th Jun 2023. Club-record: Johnny Jackson - 313 games, 28th Aug 1926 to 25th Mar 1933.)

Glad you enjoyed it folks and thanks for the interesting footnotes Norge. Looking closely at the opposition line-ups (we now have 5 of them) we can see several Norwegian internationalists of the day. We could do a whole new Partickle... Best of the season to all Thistle fans... skål! 🥃

A tour of Norway was reward for getting to the Scottish Cup final in 1930. It “set the Norwegians agog” and the Jags were described as “elegant” and “dazzling”. From Firhill to the Fjords, our brand new 'Partickle' tells the story of Thistle's first-ever encounters with continental opposition, and how they flew the flag for Scotland and wowed the locals… Welcome To Norway Mr. Lambie, Jackson & Co! →

And so we come to the 'home run' of our ambitious quest to document the entire history of the Partick Thistle reserves. Per below, we're very pleased to be introducing the latest 11 seasons of reserve team matches, from the mid 00s to date, complete with a tremendous number of potted match reports wherever it's been possible. In the final league seasons, Thistle fielded very strong teams in the tough environment of the SPFL Development League, and boys like Lindsay, Penrice, Nisbet and Fitzpatrick went on to become top players. Since the final league season (2018-19) the 'reserves' matches have become a bit of a farce, usually mis-matches played away. Matches have been played in 143 of the 149 seasons of Partick Thistle FC - it's all here, the good, the indifferent and the ugly… enjoy! Tribute should be paid to the club’s Honorary President Robert Reid for the hundreds of reserve match reports published in the club’s programmes over the seasons. The small band of unknown contributors who took on the task more recently deserve a mention too. Their combined labours have formed the basis of many of the potted reports of matches that would otherwise have gone unreported. Take a bow Mr Jack Little of The Thistle Archive, going on 10 years of hard graft in here! 1875-76 1876-77 1877-78 1878-79 1879-80 1880-81 1881-82 1882-83 1883-84 1884-85 1885-86 1886-87 1887-88 1888-89 1889-90 1890-91 1891-92 1892-93 1893-94 1894-95 1895-96 1896-97 1897-98 1898-99 1899-00 1900-01 1901-02 1902-03 1903-04 1904-05 1905-06 1906-07 1907-08 1908-09 1909-10 1910-11 1911-12 1912-13 1913-14 1914-15 1915-16 1916-17 1917-18 1918-19 1919-20 1920-21 1921-22 1922-23 1923-24 1924-25 1925-26 1926-27 1927-28 1928-29 1929-30 1930-31 1931-32 1932-33 1933-34 1934-35 1935-36 1936-37 1937-38 1938-39 1939-40 1940-41 1941-42 1942-43 1943-44 1944-45 1945-46 1946-47 1947-48 1948-49 1949-50 1950-51 1951-52 1952-53 1953-54 1954-55 1955-56 1956-57 1957-58 1958-59 1959-60 1960-61 1961-62 1962-63 1963-64 1964-65 1965-66 1966-67 1967-68 1968-69 1969-70 1970-71 1971-72 1972-73 1973-74 1974-75 1975-76 1976-77 1977-78 1978-79 1979-80 1980-81 1981-82 1982-83 1983-84 1984-85 1985-86 1986-87 1987-88 1988-89 1989-90 1990-91 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24

Just over a year ago we discovered our first 2 games of the 1876-77 season, now we have a 3rd thanks to 'Slipmat' on the P&B forum - random! It's another Partick derby and it keeps the known run going too - 7 wins in a row in the first two seasons! Smithfield 0 Partick Thistle 5 → History is being rewritten as the first Jags in print are re-adjusted, check the bios for Jack Beattie, Hugh McColl and John Young.

Most of the post Airdrie updates in place, explore via the home page news... QUICK-START DIACK ● Brian Graham's personal best run of 38 competitive games not-out comes to an end due to suspension, leaving Stuart Bannigan and Steven Lawless as the 'last-men standing' in terms of having appeared in all 21 competitive games of 2023-24. ● It's a double-whammy in the H2H this afternoon as Thistle meet Airdrie for the 200th time in league action, and for the 250th time in all competitions. ● 18-year-old Ricco Diack marks his first competitive start with his first goal for Thistle. His 7th minute goal is the 5th quickest on record for the category! (see Graphic below). ● With two assists, the astounding Aidan Fitzpatrick takes his direct goal involvement tally to EIGHT in the last four games. ● It's 9 (NINE) consecutive wins over Airdrie at Firhill, a brand new club-record for Partick Thistle FC. ongoing sequences: ● 5 competitive away games without defeat; 2nd Sep 2023 to date. (Longest run since: 7 games; 1st Apr 2023 to 18th Jul 2023. Club-record: 11 games; 29th Sep 1962 to 14th Mar 1963.) ● 40 consecutive competitive appearances for Steven Lawless, 18th Feb 2023 to date. (Longest run since: Aidan Fitzpatrick - 43 games, 3rd Dec 2022 to 21st Oct 2023. Club-record: Johnny Jackson - 313 games, 28th Aug 1926 to 25th Mar 1933.)

Yes, first time teams have both played and won all their competitive matches side by side in any given month. A magnificent stat, cap doffed Sir!

We're lucky as Jags fans to have so many fine content creators kicking about and this Dave MacKinnon interview from the Draw, Lose or Draw podcast is a typical example, fascinating chat all the way. It's a pleasure and a privilege to have this embedded at the Archive... the challenge for the flag in 78-79 and the big Freeze mkII, mental tales from Bertie Auld's dressing room, downhill with Cormack, THAT covid vote from the boardroom perspective, Jacqui Low's knockback, check it out on the new 'Audio' tab on Dave's page... Dave MacKinnon →

PTFC Women 2023-24 →

Thanks to Odie and the shed boys and girls for being such good sports with this! 🤣

We're sad to learn of the passing of 50s Jag IAN WILSON. Described by R. Reid Esq as a "cultured inside forward", Ian had 11 goals as a teenager. He conquered both halves of the Old Firm and had a New Years Day hat-trick in 1959. Back in '62, a sympathetic registrar saved his wedding day! We pay our respects and tribute today... R.I.P. Ian Wilson →

Match Lists (Men's Reserves) → Our immense undertaking continues and, per below, we're very pleased to be introducing another 18 seasons of reserve team matches, from the mid 90s to the mid 10s, complete with a tremendous number of potted match reports wherever it's been possible. Not a single match in 1997-98 was a sign of the skint times. A Premier League double over Rangers in 2003-04 was noteworthy, as was a strong League Cup showing in 2007-08. As for striking gold, we'll need to settle for annexing the 'Stonehouse Violet Challenge Cup' in 2011-12! Interesting to chart the evolution of the likes of Archibald and Bannigan. 1995-96 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13

^ Ah yes, there was an [a] instead of [h] typo on the home page, thank you JeanieD, quite a fan of useful pedantry! ^^ PTD "a thrilling burst of red and yellow in a field of predominantly green and blue" is rather beautiful prose! 43 nationalities / territories is the latest count, and I'm sure that's going to rise to 44 when we confirm Gospel Ocholi is Nigerian, albeit confirmation proof remains elusive! Here are the 43 to learn off by heart (temp page for the month of November!) Player Flags →