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 Fir Park
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 10th
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
