Bannigan set to repay Jags for show of faith

STUART BANNIGAN knows if Partick Thistle had binned him with a bad knee, then he wouldn’t have been able to script a sob story.

After all, the midfielder had intimated he was ready to leave at the end of the 2015/16 season as the campaign of his career had attracted interest from Aberdeen and Barnsley.

Bannigan decided he wanted out of Firhill and was preparing to better himself as time ticked down on his Thistle contract.

Then, when chasing Neil Alexander down in the Hearts goal in March 2016, his knee buckled. Those dreams of a fresh start as a free agent were crushed.

However, as Bannigan got to grips with the idea of a long road back to recovery without a job, his club stood strong behind him and offered him a new deal.

The job of thanking managing director Ian Maxwell and boss Alan Archibald for their unstinting support and that remarkable show of faith is only just beginning.

For Bannigan (right) is back in first-team action this pre-season after an agonising 15 months on the sidelines, comforted by the security that act of solidarity provided for the 24-year-old. ‘I can’t thank Ian Maxwell and the manager enough,’ he said. ‘They were great with me. They could easily have shunted me and I could only have put my hands up and said: “No problem at all”. ‘I need to repay them on the pitch over the next couple of years. I now need to start from scratch. The team was great last season without me in there. ‘A lot of boys did really well, so I need to show I deserve to be playing. I hope I can make the team even better but first of all I need to get in the starting line-up and settle myself in.’ Bannigan’s initial diagnosis suggested avoiding the surgeon’s knife, advice that cost him up to five months before undergoing the cruciate operation last August. ‘It was a terrible blow to realise I’d be out for another nine months on top of the four or five that had already passed,’ he said. ‘But what can you do? You can’t sulk. I knew it needed to be done and had to get on with it. It was just whether or not I could recover from it and come back better than I was.’