Thistle end in tears if people don’t step up to the plate at Firhill
A Partick Thistle- supporting neighbour shouted from across the street this week and I was showered with profanity.
“What the beeping, beep is going on at my club?” was the cry.
This wasn’t just casual curiosity but deep-rooted concern the team he has followed since being taken to Firhill as a boy appears in danger of going up s*** creek, so to speak.
When assessing levels of crisis at football clubs you look for the usual suspects and box-tickers.
Mystery investors, the word billionaire and tell-tale signs like players being told the team bus is being ditched and they’d have to make their own travel arrangements for fixtures. Then you get the club statements to rebuke rumour and try to reassure fans they haven’ t removed £ 200,000 from the manager’s transfer kitty.
Having played for the Jags youth team, scored for thei r reserves and had John Lambie promise me a contract before going b ack on th e agreement, I’ve always had an emotional attachment to Thistle.
They’re not quite the only team I wanted to play for but the first one I ever watched after being taken by my father.
When the warning signs and flares are being fired from inside Firhill then there’s a duty to start asking some questions.
By most recent accounts, Partick are financially stable and debt-free, despite losing around £1million in income after suffering relegation two seasons ago.
Why then would they open the door to Chinese- American billionaire Chien Lee and his NewCity Capital takeover group and who exactly is going to benefit?
Throwing money into the transfer pot isn’t part of their agenda, it’s about the only thing they’ve admitted.
The boardroom coup led by chairman David Beattie was more than political bloodletting, it was paving the way for something far more dramatic and life-changing for the club.
There’s also a PR spin being put into operation to try to reassure the support that there’s nothing sinister at play, which is another warning sign.
In a week where plans to build a new training facility went to the wall and the proposal for a £6m academy, due to be financed by EuroMillions winner Colin Weir, was dead in the water, it’s just bad news after bad news.
Good people have opted to walk away or been removed. In the case of club legend Alan Rough and Weir, they’ve walked through principle.
Lee and hi s investment company own French club Nice and Barnsley and neither has become a roaring success story. It has to be asked, why Partick Thistle and where’s the money to be made? It’s all about the modus operandi.
If their plan is to purchase a controlling stake in Thistle then further clearance will be needed from both the EFL and the Scottish FA so step forward former Jags chief and current top man at Hampden, Ian Maxwell.
He needs to judge whether the move would flout the rules about dual ownership of football clubs in Britain.
Judging by the current state of affairs with my neighbour and events down Maryhill way, he could do his old club a favour and tell NewCity Capital to do one.
To assess levels of crisis at clubs look for usual suspects and for the box-tickers