Concussions, conspiracies and cup glory
THE 100-year anniversary of Partick Thistle’s sole Scottish Cup triumph on Friday was marked by Ian McCall’s team trouncing Montrose 5-0 the night before.
But back in 1921, George Easton and his players had to labour through 11 gruelling fixtures on their way to lifting the trophy at Celtic Park – no club has played more Cup fixtures and gone on to lift the trophy – eventually overcoming Bill Struth’s free-scoring Rangers with a dogged display in the final.
John Blair provided the game’s only goal and against the odds, the Jags held on.
“We haven’t won the Scottish Cup since,” says long-serving club director Robert Reid, who has probably seen more Partick Thistle matches than anyone else. “We won the League Cup in 1971 and took Rangers to a replay in the final of the cup in the 1929/30 season.
“It was a hard road to the final – 11 matches, including replays with Motherwell, Hearts and Hibernian. Funnily enough, the game we struggled most in was the one against East Stirling.
“We were handicapped for the final because two of our outstanding players had to drop out injured at the last minute, but we put in a very resolute performance. We scored after about 20 minutes and defended like mad thereafter. It’s one of the outstanding results in our history.
“There were a lot of funny things about that final. It was called the ‘Boycott Final’ – it was a poor crowd, only about 28,000. Some of these things were not disadvantageous to Thistle. There were 30,000 or 40,000 Rangers fans who didn’t turn up and that fell in Thistle’s favour. Parkhead was the venue, which would have gone down like a lead balloon with Rangers fans as well.
“I don’t think you could categorise us as favourites for the trophy, but we were one of the top five or six teams in Scotland at that time. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise but they still weren’t expected to win.
“It’s that long ago that no one living has seen the game. I’ve seen Partick Thistle play about 3,500 times but I can assure you, I wasn’t at that one!”
Supporter and historian Graham Nisbet says the route to Parkhead was anything but incident-free, despite Thistle’s propensity for goalless draws.
“We got a bye in the first round so it could have been an even longer run,” he says. “Then we were drawn away to Hibernian in the next round at the start of February. The first game was 0-0 and the second game was played at Firhill a few days later. Again, it was not a very pleasant night and another 0-0 draw that was nothing to write home about.
“There’s a Hibs history book which has an excerpt about the game that reads: ‘Before the end of the game, a tenement in Maryhill caught fire, blowing smoke into the faces of the Hibs team, hampering them playing. The fire had no sooner been put out when another chimney caught fire, again blowing smoke into the faces of the Hibees. Some paranoid Hibs supporters grumbled that it was a conspiracy’.”
Conspiracy or not, Thistle’s name was in the hat for the next round after they finally overcame Hibs at the third time of asking.
East Stirling were next to be despatched in a game where three of the Jags’ opponents suffered concussion, and they also took three attempts to overcome their fourth-round opponents Motherwell.
That teed up a semi-final with Hearts, where a 2-0 win for the Jags – again at the third attempt following two goalless draws – sent them through to the final.
“It was played on April 16 at Celtic Park, and we were playing against a Rangers team that had scored 98 goals by that point in the season,” said Nisbet, whose father attended the game. “They had only been beaten once during the season and that was against Celtic.
“Rangers had a formidable squad of international players up against us and at the last minute, [Jimmy] McMullan picked up a strained ankle and wasn’t available for the final. The centre-back Bill Hamilton, who had been a rock-steady stalwart in defence, was ruled out with illness.
“They didn’t have their main men in there but what they did was bring back Jimmy McMenemy, the ex-Celtic player who was 40.”
It was an inspired decision. McMenemy had only joined the club that year from Celtic, but according to Reid he was an outstanding figure in that cup campaign. He played a crucial role in the build-up for the final’s solitary goal, getting one over his old rivals one last time.
Naturally, McMenemy is more closely associated with his time at Celtic than his Thistle spell – he is considered by many to be one of the most important players in the history of the Parkhead club – but his grandson John says the Jags always held a special place in his heart.
“He had a great affection for Celtic obviously, but I remember my mum saying that he always spoke highly of Thistle and that he enjoyed his time there,” he said. “He had a smashing time at Thistle – made all the better by beating Rangers in the final! That just put the tin hat on it all. My mother told me that in the final he had to be strapped because his legs were in a bad way.
“He liked to compare the football in the ’60s to when he played. He thought it had gone a bit soft – even in the ’60s, and I thought it was quite hard then! There was one occasion at Celtic where he played two or three games in one day. I think he thought footballers had it easier than he did, which is probably true. Goodness knows what he’d make of it today!”