Should 'Play-Off Winners' be included in our honours list?

[The Thistle Archive]

We're working on the Honours list in regards to players. This will follow our standard club honours list for first-team 11-a-sides...

PTFC Honours List →

At the moment, the Play-Off winners of 2005-06 are not included, but is there a case to be made that they should be?

It's especially pertinent at the moment as we head, once more, into the madness!

Please vote (poll closes Sunday-05-May 23:59) and it'd good to hear your thoughts on the subject...

 

[Auld Jag]

Voted yes - but promotion wins only.

[Lenziejag]

Before playoffs were introduced, did you include teams/players that were promoted in 2nd place ?

[The Thistle Archive]

50 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

Before playoffs were introduced, did you include teams/players that were promoted in 2nd place ?

Yes!

We try to avoid cherrypicking if at all possible, so all 1st / 2nd place for tournaments / challenge matches where there's been a trophy at stake have had an automatic credit. And, 'til now, the only cherrypicking instance outwith that has been to award the 'bronze' for the 3 x 3rd place finishes in the top tier which were outstanding achievements for our club.

So, this would be the second instance of cherrypicking outwith the rules, not something we like to do if we can help it, but winning promotion is a big thing, so it certainly merits the question being asked...

[Duke Gekantawa]

Not for me- no. Simply because they have not won anything. It was once the case that finishing second won promotion, but no there would be no ”honour” in the proposal. Yet now finishing fourth is potentially worth official honour should we succeed in the playoff. Not for me.

Edited May 1 by Duke Gekantawa

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Kinda agree with the Duke. Complicating matters perhaps but if we were to finish 2nd and then go on to win play offs then that to me appears different.

[allyo]

You have to be straight.

My natural feeling is that promotion through play-offs is an honour but saving yourself from relegation is not. In that respect I'm with the majority. 

However, if the play-offs are to be considered a "competition" then it should make no difference how you reached them, only whether you won them.

Perhaps it's just a question of whether promotions are included in honours, regardlessof play-offs. For example,  2nd place in 1991. Is this an honour? If so (and I sure celebrated like it was) then I'd say this is equivalent to playoff promotions in 2006 and 2024.

So in summary, if you are basing it on the playoff then all successes should be counted. If you are counting promotions throughout history then you should continue to do so, and justify omitting saving ourselves (if we ever actually manage to do that).

Simple, eh?

 

[Lenziejag]

I am with allyo in this. The honour is in the promotion, not the finishing position. Staying up via the playoffs isn’t an honour, that would be a relief.

[Jaggernaut]

2 hours ago, Lenziejag said:

I am with allyo in this. The honour is in the promotion, not the finishing position. Staying up via the playoffs isn’t an honour, that would be a relief.

That sums it up nicely, I think.

[Dick Dastardly]

Where do you draw the line ? Is making the top 6 in Premiership not a more notable achievement ?

Would Winning a playoff from League Two be something to celebrate. For me it is a No. In general there is already too much hype around questionable achievements 

[Lenziejag]

24 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:

Where do you draw the line ? Is making the top 6 in Premiership not a more notable achievement ?

Would Winning a playoff from League Two be something to celebrate. For me it is a No. In general there is already too much hype around questionable achievements 

If league two is the league you are in, why wouldn’t you celebrate promotion out of it even if it is via a playoff. It marks of elitism otherwise. It’s the set up we compete in. 
As for the poll, over 7,000 were at Firhill celebrating a playoff final 1st leg win and 2,000 + at Dingwall hoping to celebrate a win there too.

 

[Duke Gekantawa]

On 5/2/2024 at 1:32 PM, Lenziejag said:

If league two is the league you are in, why wouldn’t you celebrate promotion out of it even if it is via a playoff. It marks of elitism otherwise. It’s the set up we compete in. 
As for the poll, over 7,000 were at Firhill celebrating a playoff final 1st leg win and 2,000 + at Dingwall hoping to celebrate a win there too.

 

It is not elitist to recognise that finishing top 6 in the premier is a far greater achievement than, for example, a League 2 title or League 1 playoff win

[allyo]

Finishing 8th in the Premier League is a greater achievement than winning the second division, but only one of them is an "honour" and it's not 8th.

[Dick Dastardly]

We could go to European semi finals, later stages of the cups, 3rd in the Premier league and not get any honours, but 4th in a league of 10 and a few lucky results gets you an honour ? It is awarding mediocrity just for an excuse to have something overly hyped.

Save honours for REAL achievements.

[allyo]

It's just a mention on a list 

If Elgin City did that then it would be a great achievement. I agree that for Thistle it wasn't.  But you can't define what is an 'honour" by the status of the club.

If you did that you wouldn't be listing any of Celtic's league titles while "Rangers" were down the leagues.

[Lenziejag]

13 hours ago, Duke Gekantawa said:

It is not elitist to recognise that finishing top 6 in the premier is a far greater achievement than, for example, a League 2 title or League 1 playoff win

Dick’s argument was that we shouldn’t even celebrate a promotion via a playoff from a lower league. That’s what I was calling out as elitist. 
 

[The Thistle Archive]

Thank you all for the debate, all input much appreciated, and it kinda underlines why the question needed to be asked!

Across here and Twitter 89 voted, and it was 63-26 in favour of recognising the 2006 promotion in our 'Honours' list.

As of today, the deed is done:
Partick Thistle FC honours list →

Generally speaking, subjectivity is best avoided in these areas, and this is likely to be the last time we break away from 1st/2nd place competition finishes in the list.

We're all agreed that, should ever we win a play-off to avoid relegation then it won't be classed as an 'honour'.

Over 500 of our boys qualify for an honour of some sort and we look forward to rolling the tabs out at some stage.

Meantime, you can get an idea of how this will look via 3 pages that were fast-forwarded to support recent 'Thistle Pin' launches:

Neil Duffy →

Peter Lindau →

Brian Graham →