What Matters To Us?

[Vom Itorium]

I feel I'm maybe in a good position to comment on this. Fifty years ago I was a Rangers fan. Not surprising really, as a wee boy in a Rangers supporting family I'd discovered the joys of football - largely through the excitement of the annual Scotland v. England games and the rare live match on black-and-white tv - and the obvious next step was to go to Ibrox. Somewhat ironically my first professional game was a Rangers v. Celtic match to which I was taken by my uncle, my mother's brother, who was a Celtic fan. We stood at the Celtic end at Ibrox. (I come from what in the west of Scotland is called 'a mixed family'.) So, for a season, I was a H*n. What turned me away from Rangers was the sectarian bile - the Catholic side of my family are lovely people and I couldn't square the anti-popery drivel with these people I knew and liked - and the fact that I became aware that Rangers won games all too often simply because they were Rangers - teams came to Ibrox and froze in the face of a reputation that wasn't deserved by the current team in blue. The game that finally did it for me was a match against Motherwell where the Motherwell team of the time had some really good, talented players and Rangers won because of a disputed penalty and the fact that the Motherwell team gave up towards the end of the game rather than going for the win that was there for the taking. (A familiar scenario, I think you'll agree.)

 

So to Thistle. A friend took me to see Thistle play Raith Rovers. Firhill just seemed a magical place. I felt connected to players and supporters going back to the beginning of the century. (Possibly because the terracing, enclosures, stands and buildings DID go back to the beginning of the century, and looked it.) I was told if the lum reeked, Thistle would win. It did, and we only managed a draw. (1-1 and Jimmy Bone scored the equaliser.) Thistle's reputation was as the Great Unpredictables - beat the Old Firm, but loose to the Glenbuck Cherrypickers. And this shaped the supporters - they were romantics, stoics, philosophers, able to look on life with a wisdom denied the supporters of other teams, able to laugh at the failings of the team they loved and come back the next week for more.

 

I became a Thistle fan not because I 'hated' Rangers or Celtic, but because of what Thistle represented - an attitude that was expansive, inclusive and transcended the narrow focus of the Old Firm and, indeed, all other Scottish football teams. Thistle fans have been slagged off for years for being 'luvvies' - what the insult hints at is what I always felt to be a truth - supporting Thistle was about an attitude of mind which was in itself a romantic philosophy, a belief in the underdog taken to a point where the 'success' or 'failure' of said underdog was redefined so that winning football games was only required occasionally to remind the more ignorant of our superior position, morally on top of the world, ma, now and forever.

 

In recent years I've felt that idea of Thistle has been eroded, threatened by financial meltdown and the fear of going out of existence. I know why winning games matters more now than it did fifty years ago - the continuing existence of the club depends on it. But we are Thistle. The poets and philosophers of the beautiful game. We laugh at failure and roar with pleasure at success. The Jags, now and forever!

Superb post.

[crazy davie]

My take on this is that I don't think that too many Thistle supporters are Thistle supporters because they hate the OF. But many Thistle supporters hate the OF because they are Thistle supporters.

Nailed it.

[Gordie]

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.

 

as I was saying a wind up merchant.

[sandy]

But we are Thistle. The poets and philosophers of the beautiful game. We laugh at failure and roar with pleasure at success. The Jags, now and forever!

 

That for me sums it up.

 

I've never ascribed to the school of 'hating' other teams; even if their supporters show bile, it's better to rise above that.

[fatha bacon]

it's a bit out dated hating the old firm now. they'd only treat us with apathy if we played them and we started singing ab=out hating them. Plus i hate that song, always reminds me of all the cretinous tramps on my school bus singing that song but it was celtic hating on rangers. hated it ever since that. them, their songs, their need for smoking on a crowded bus. scarred me

[JeanieD]

Perhaps, as most of the postings suggest, we are best defined by what we are rather then by what we are not.We are, first and foremost a football club - obvious really - but in Glasgow it appears that to exist you have to be more than that - you not only have to be defined by what you are but you also need to bedefined by what you are not and what you therefore despise. Indeed the two largest Glasgow clubs have become relatively wealthy peddling this "identity"to the sheep who buy into it. However, success (even in a relative scenario) does tend to breed (perhaps that should be inbreed?) success and the 2 largest Glasgow clubs have benefitted from this. To break away from the narrow Glasgow and the implications of religions perhaps we should be slightly envious of those clubs who have a geographical identity (albeit contaminated in many cases by the numbers of supporters who travel distances to support the two largest Glasgow teams). At least these teams get some local identity, local press coverage, and some visibility within the local community - we, mainly as an accident of geography cannot - all we get is, to a large degree, irritating and patronising - although welcome - coverage.

In recent times the gulf between Thistle and the two largest Glasgow Clubs has become a chasm of astronomical proportions - mainly due to our own failings and also the need for the modern day young supporter to be suckled at the breast of success constantly - 24 hrs a day - 7 days a week, 10 months every season. If not they are lost to the world of Game Boys, Play Stations and bloody Wii games.

It's difficult for us to get away from this cycle of failure - not because we are unique or different or special (we are none of these things but we are geographically unfortunate). I sometimes wish I had been brought up in Greenock, Falkirk, Paisley even Airdrie at least it wouldn't have made football existance so irritating - and at least I could have moved to Glasgow at some stage!

[Ross]

It's more than a football club, Thislte, for me.

 

I love the people that I have met through supporting the Jags and the unexpected highs and lows of supporting us but most importantly I love the fact that we're not the old firm and the fact that we don't use mad 'ideological' theories such as 'Thislte minded', 'The Thistle Family' or 'The Thistle Story'. What sane human beings actually utter pish like that?

 

Why can't celtic fans spell the word 'boy'? It has no 'h' in it, ok? Why do Rangers choose sinister looking holograms like Craig Whyte to own them?

 

You know how in the news when there's a story being reported and there's always that phrase, 'What we have to realise here is that it's the minority of people....', well with them it's the majority. They hold such a smug, self centred, insular perspective of their clubs which just baffles me. Thistle fans will always experience of dealing with an old firm fan who comes up to them and says, 'aw see if the the Glesga rangers/sellick didnae exist, ah would support the Jags.' This is then followed by the old firm fan in question hoping you'll reply with similar sentiments. Not a chance. I usually just reply with a dead pan response about how I would support some random club like River Plate and STILL hate the old firm if Thistle weren't about.

 

Oh sorry, I'm being a bit rude about them, they are the most successful teams in this country. They win SPL every year and clear up with the rest of the domestic trophies the majority of the time.....so? The Old Firm winning a trophy in Scotland is the equivalent of Usain Bolt tanning someone who has cystic fibrosis in the 100 metres or a UFC fighter kicking the shite out of a homeless person with spina bifida.

[Jaggernaut]

 

 

Oh sorry, I'm being a bit rude about them, they are the most successful teams in this country. They win SPL every year and clear up with the rest of the domestic trophies the majority of the time.....so? The Old Firm winning a trophy in Scotland is the equivalent of Usain Bolt tanning someone who has cystic fibrosis in the 100 metres or a UFC fighter kicking the shite out of a homeless person with spina bifida.

Tut tut.

:D