Blog Off!

As I write this Partick Thistle are on the cusp of securing their Premiership status for another season. Before going further I feel that I should provide a disclaimer at this point. Being 10 points clear with just 4 games remaining is a good position to be in but not one that allows this writer to totally relax either; I’ve been following Thistle for far too long for that.

You would think, however, that even allowing for some red and yellow tinged pessimism and anxiety, that most Jags fans would be fairly content with the Club’s current position.

Well Scott McFarlane, writing in www.scotzine.com, certainly isn’t as this blog article is testament to;

http://www.scotzine.com/2015/04/partick-thistle-blog-its-time-that-we-start-taking-risks/

Scott doesn’t begin well when he proclaims that he believes that he speaks “for most Thistle fans”. The overwhelming reaction to his article, which basically claims that Thistle have underperformed in a variety of areas over the season; would suggest that that belief is somewhat misplaced.

Scott’s first concern is that the Club didn’t push for a European place this season despite having the “foundations and fan base” that give Thistle a better chance of doing that than others.

That claim is worth exploring a little further. Thistle’s average home league attendance this season stands at just 3,386 and with only Hamilton’s at 2,533 lower Thistle come in at a whopping 11^th place in that league table.  Furthermore that represents a drop from last season, when Thistle were able to enjoy large travelling supports to Firhill on a number of occasions, of 32.3%. That particular statistic should cause Thistle fans at the very least a slight shudder of concern.

That’s the fan base claim covered but what are these foundations that Scott talks about? It shouldn’t be forgotten that this season is just Thistle’s second back in the top flight. A step up in divisions doesn’t automatically come with the infrastructure of a top flight club. That takes time to build and develop and Thistle haven’t had the benefit of the consistent top flight status that the likes of Kilmarnock and Motherwell, for now, have enjoyed.  Scott even seems to concede this point when he says that Thistle aren’t, yet, a “high flying club”.

So where precisely do his concerns lie?

It would seem fairly and squarely at the door of the manager Alan Archibald. Scott claims that Archibald isn’t a “good football manager” without actually expanding on that point other than to say he doesn’t like him standing with his arms folded. Especially when it is cold.

Seeing as Scott hasn’t bothered to explore Archibald’s record as Thistle manager I will instead. He became Partick Thistle manager when Jackie McNamara left to become Dundee United manager. That Archibald inherited a good squad of players is hardly in doubt but he took over at a time of some turmoil with the loss of a talented manager. An inexperienced squad was trailing Morton in the First Division title race, albeit with games in hand, and many observers believed Thistle’s title push was at an end.

Fast forward 16 unbeaten league games and Partick Thistle are First Division Champions winning the league by a margin off 11 points.

The following season Thistle had avoided automatic relegation prior to the late season split (Hearts’ point deduction helping in that regard) and a play-off position was avoided with victory in the penultimate fixture of the season.

This season automatic relegation was again avoided prior to the split (no Hearts safety net this season) and Thistle are on course to avoid a play-off spot comfortably before the season’s conclusion (please see my previous disclaimer).

Every job that Alan Archibald has been asked to do as Thistle manager he has done or is on course to do. Since league reconstruction in 1975 only two managers, Bertie Auld and John Lambie, have kept Thistle in the top flight for three or more successive seasons. If, as most people expect, Alan Archibald does that then he will become just the third Thistle manager to do so in 40 years. I’ll leave it to those better at counting than me to tell you how many haven’t managed that feat. Some of them even waved their arms in the air.

Criticism too has been directed, by Scott, towards the Club’s youth structure or more accurately the failure to play more youngsters in the first team. The theme of aspects of the Club’s structure needing time to develop and grow is becoming a recurring one. Massive strides have been taken in terms of Youth Development with the investment of the Weirs seeing things taken to a new level. Laying aside the fact that Stuart Bannigan came through the later age groups in the Thistle youth system, and that Declan McDaid, Liam Lindsay and David Wilson have all featured in the first team this season, the most talented crop of youngsters in the Weir Academy haven’t reached the stage in their development where they can play first team football at the level that Thistle are currently playing at. A number though are continuing their footballing educations while at on loan. All seems very positive on the youth development front.

There is one thing upon which myself and Scott agree on and that is the fact that the manager will face a challenging summer.  There is a difference, however, in how the two of us interpret that challenge. For Scott the fact that we struggle to sign, and hold onto, players that can acquire larger wages elsewhere is a failing of the Club; a lack of ambition. In contrast I tend to take the view that the lower the crowd the lower the income and the harder it becomes to attract the kind of player that will see the Club make continued progress.

It seems to me that there is, particularly within the younger generation of Thistle fans, a frustration at the rate of progress that Partick Thistle as a club is making. Is everything perfect at Firhill? No, it isn’t but there needs to be a realisation that the further you climb up the ladder of Scottish Football the harder it becomes to improve year on year and how small the margin of that progress can be. Partick Thistle Football Club is in a much healthier position than it was when Alan Archibald became manager. Hopefully the full-time whistle tomorrow will signal the successful completion of another job and further progress for The Jags. 

John Donnelly

How my article about John Donnelly in the Sick in the Basin Fanzine should have looked. A big chunk of it simply disappeared. Probably the fault of the printers; it usually is in my experience. :-)

I was still a relatively impressionable youngster when I arrived at Firhill to purchase my season ticket sometime in the mid 1980s. So much so that the offer of a wee tour round Firhill was accepted without a moment’s hesitation. I can remember remarking on how neat and tidy Firhill was looking. “Yes”, my tour guide quipped before going further;

“We’ve painted just about everything that doesn’t move. I’m surprised that we haven’t painted that bugger John Donnelly yet”.

That description summed up the, ahem, languid Mr Donnelly pretty well. To use a rather colourful description applied to an equally work averse Scottish footballer; if he pished himself it would stroll down his leg rather than run.

Donnelly began his career as a youngster with Notts County before returning to Scotland to sign for Motherwell in 1979. After a season at Fir Park he was on the move again; this time signing for Dumbarton.

His career seemed to take off while at Boghead and in March 1983 a reported £15,000 transfer fee, a pretty reasonable fee at the time, took him back to England and Leeds United when he became Eddie Gray’s first signing as Leeds manager.

In total Donnelly made 44 first team appearances for Leeds and scored 4 goals but scanning, the admittedly brief, information available online about his time at Leeds it seems his most noteworthy contribution while at Elland Road was to puke at the side of the pitch in a match against Shrewsbury Town.

At any rate Donnelly washed up at the Firhill shores, hopefully well and truly vomit free, initially for a month’s loan, in November 1984. To say that he was joining a poor Partick Thistle side would be a major understatement. This was the era of Benny Rooney and painfully poor players. Just how poor can be seen in the team he made his Thistle debut in, a 0-0 draw at Kilmarnock. Included in that side were players of the calibre of David Walker and Tommy O’Hara. Anyone with even a modicum of talent was going to stand out in this team. Now, okay the only way that Donnelly was going to come off the pitch with his shirt wringing wet was if he fell in a puddle but talent he had.

Donnelly’s first Thistle goals came in the final match, a home game with St Johnstone, of that short loan spell. The first of a Donnelly double arrived after Gordon Dalziel had completing miskicked the ball and gave Thistle a 10^th minute lead.

This was a game, however, in which defences were definitely not on top. Just five minutes after taking the lead Thistle found themselves trailing 2-1. Joe Carson, yes it really was some Thistle team in 1984, headed home Donnelly’s free kick before Donnelly himself gave Thistle a 3-2 half-time lead. His second goal gets further and further out with every year that passes but ‘The Evening Times’ describes Donnelly second goal as “brilliantly back-heeled from 15 yards into Drummond’s left hand corner”.

A goal ahead at the interval did Thistle hang on to win? Not quite. We were gubbed 7-3.

Donnelly returned to Leeds after that game but was back at Firhill the following March this time as a fully fledged Jag. He marked his debut second time around with a goal in a crucial 3-2 win at Ayr United, scored with two fabulous free kicks in a 3-1 midweek win at Brechin and sunk the penalty that secured a 1-1 draw with Forfar on the penultimate Saturday of the season; the point securing Thistle’s position in the middle league for another season. Across the two spells the left winger, scruffy and often strolling through games, had scored 7 goals from just 10 games. The Jags fans loved him.

The following season he finished as the Club’s leading goalscorer with 11 goals but Thistle, who binned Benny Rooney with 7 games remaining and replaced him with Bertie Auld, again avoided relegation in the last but one game of the season.

Donnelly was hardly wee Bertie’s type of players and there were rumours of a bust up between manager and player. The more lurid rumours having the two coming to blows and with Donnelly’s name missing from the team for the final two games of the season there may have been a hint of truth to the rumours of a fall out.

Bertie though would soon be away as new majority shareholder Ken Bates decided that Derek Johnstone was the man to lead Thistle to glory.

Before too long Donnelly too would be on his way. His last Thistle appearance came in a match with Dunfermline at East End Park in September 1986. Typically Donnelly marked the occasion with a goal. Sadly it was an own goal. Thistle were trailing 1-0 with 12 minutes remaining but were very much in the game when Donnelly passed the ball back to keeper John Brough only Brough wasn’t in his goal at the time and the ball trundled over the line.

Donnelly did make up for that lapse though it took him five months to do.

The own goal didn’t put Dunfermline off signing him and they paid £5,000 to take him to East End Park. In February 1987 Thistle were again in action away to The Pars. Half-time was approaching and Thistle were a goal down when Donnelly generously headed the ball into his own net to make it 1-1 at the break. There was no happy ending, however, as Dunfermline; who would clinch promotion to the Premier League at the end of the season, won 2-1.

Several months on from that game, on an especially cold and wintry afternoon, reports came through from East End Park that one of the home players had been substituted suffering from hypothermia. It came as little surprise down Firhill way to learn that the frost bitten Par was none other than John Donnelly. One suspects that had the physio had come on with a Nip for (or of) JD all would have been well.

Donnelly, not exactly renowned for his discipline and respect for authority, fell out with Dunfermline and was subsequently sacked. His next port of call was Stranraer and from there he wound up at Junior side Vale of Clyde. The last confirmed sighting, in a football connection at any rate, of Donnelly was of him coaching kids in the Dalmarnock area of the east end of Glasgow. Wonder what kind of work rate he demanded from them.