The Partick Thistle thread

[oneteaminglasgow]

f**k sake. 

[Fitbafollower]

How many weeks is Aaro out for

he certainly took a sore one on Saturday 

[Mike the Magyar]

I can’t imagine Fulham will will be falling over themselves to loan players to Scottish Championship Clubs if they’re returned as damaged goods.  Good luck in the future Connor and a speedy recovery.

[Highlandmagar]

13 hours ago, Mike the Magyar said:

I can’t imagine Fulham will will be falling over themselves to loan players to Scottish Championship Clubs if they’re returned as damaged goods.  Good luck in the future Connor and a speedy recovery.

This can happen to any player. The amount of players loaned out, there are going to be ones injured.

 

Clubs know the risk. It's football. 

[The Thistle Archive]

All the post-match updates in place via the home page →

LONGEST UNBEATEN RUN IN OVER A YEAR ● Thistle field their oldest starting eleven (av. 29y, 8m, 6d) since Dick Campbell's Jags (av. 29y, 11m, 2d) won 1-0 at home to Forfar Athletic in January 2006. ● After 6 games, Kris Doolan's Jags have yet to concede a first half goal, and it's 7-in-a-row for the club overall. ● The run of 15 games without a draw in the Thistle vs. Dundee fixture comes to an end. It's the first draw between the sides since November 2015. ● Defensively, the concession of just one goal in six games for Kris Doolan's Jags represents the greatest starting ratio of any Thistle manager in history. ● Kris Doolan remains unbeaten in his first 6 competitive matches. Only Alan Archibald (10) has been on a longer run at the beginning of a managerial tenureship.   ongoing sequences: ● 6 competitive games without defeat, 18th Feb 2023 to date. (Longest run since: 6 games, 18th Dec 2021 to 9th Feb 2022. Joint club-record: 16 games, 15th Nov 1975 to 21st Feb 1976 & 30th Sep 2000 to 13th Jan 2001.) ● 39 consecutive competitive appearances for Jack McMillan, 9th Jul 2022 to date, a new personal best. (Longest run since: Jamie Sneddon - 41 games, 28th Aug 2021 to 9th Jul 2022. Club-record: Johnny Jackson - 313 games, 28th Aug 1926 to 25th Mar 1933.)

[Pie Of The Month]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0f9x1n5

Brian Graham getting interviewed by Leanne Crichton and Rachel Corsie. Talks about being manager of the women's team mainly since that's the general theme of the podcast but there's a bit about how the men's team is doing, McCall's sacking and Doolan taking over.

[The Thistle Archive]

All the post-match updates in place via the home page →

 

GOAL DROUGHT

● PT and ICT meet for the 8th consecutive time in a non-Saturday fixture, matching the club-record; Celtic (8, 2013-2015), Glentoran (8, 1904-1996) and Queen's Park (8, 1950-1956). The current run of 5 consecutive Fridays is unprecedented!

● In an historical first for a Thistle game, two players who've registered hauls of four for Thistle (Billy Dodds & Kris Doolan) face off as opposing managers.

● After 7 games, Kris Doolan's Jags have yet to concede a first half goal, and it's 8-in-a-row for the club overall.

● Sean Welsh becomes the 23rd man to have both played for Thistle and been sent off against Thistle. He's the second of this season, following on from Joe Cardle. In chronological order of first sending off, the full list reads: Norrie Davidson, Bobby Houston, Colin Jackson, Jimmy Bone, Barney McGee, Dougie Mills, Donald Park, Brian Wright, Gareth Evans, Paul McGrillen, Billy Dodds, Albert Craig, Andy Roddie, Derek Ferguson, Paul Walker, Barry Elliot, James Grady, James Gibson, Eddie Forrest, Steven Anderson, Gary Miller, Joe Cardle and Sean Welsh.

● More than 13 years have passed since Thistle came back for so much as a share of the spoils when trailing to a 10-man team. They last did so in a 2-2 League draw at Ross County in October, 2009.

● 5 competitive away games without a win at Inverness is an unwanted first in Partick Thistle's history.

● It's now 3 League games without a goal for Thistle and you need to rewind back to 2010 to find a longer run (5) in the second tier.

ongoing sequences:

● 40 consecutive competitive appearances for Jack McMillan, 9th Jul 2022 to date, a new personal best. (Longest run since: Jamie Sneddon - 41 games, 28th Aug 2021 to 9th Jul 2022. Club-record: Johnny Jackson - 313 games, 28th Aug 1926 to 25th Mar 1933.)

[capt_oats]

What's the general consensus on Archibald as a coach?

That's him been announced as our (Motherwell) Lead Development Coach so he's looking after our Reserves and u18s.

[oneteaminglasgow]

36 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

What's the general consensus on Archibald as a coach?

That's him been announced as our (Motherwell) Lead Development Coach so he's looking after our Reserves and u18s.

I have no idea about his qualities as a coach, but I will say he was very fond of giving young players a chance in the first team while he was managing us. And he’ll have worked with a fair few of your current first team players too - O’Donnell, Spittal and McGinn were all managed by him, off the top of my head. 

I’m glad he’s landed on his feet after leaving us. 

[jagsfan57]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

What's the general consensus on Archibald as a coach?

That's him been announced as our (Motherwell) Lead Development Coach so he's looking after our Reserves and u18s.

He took on the 1st team coaching in our promotion season to the premier division when Jackie McNamarra left and went on an unbeaten run to win the league. He got us into the top 6 in our 4th season up, before imploding and relegation the following season in the play offs. Stayed a season too long. Came back as assistant when McCall got reappointed, but his reputation had already been tarnished. 

[GrahamJags]

2 hours ago, jagsfan57 said:

He took on the 1st team coaching in our promotion season to the premier division when Jackie McNamarra left and went on an unbeaten run to win the league. He got us into the top 6 in our 4th season up, before imploding and relegation the following season in the play offs. Stayed a season too long. Came back as assistant when McCall got reappointed, but his reputation had already been tarnished. 

His reputation had hardly been tarnished.

Archie did give youth a chance in the first team as often as he could. Had a particular fondness for randomly playing David Wilson every time we played Celtic. I’d imagine a role like that one at Motherwell would be perfect for him. 

Edited March 27, 2023 by GrahamJags

[JagsCG]

6 hours ago, jagsfan57 said:

He took on the 1st team coaching in our promotion season to the premier division when Jackie McNamarra left and went on an unbeaten run to win the league. He got us into the top 6 in our 4th season up, before imploding and relegation the following season in the play offs. Stayed a season too long. Came back as assistant when McCall got reappointed, but his reputation had already been tarnished. 

‘Tarnished’ is harsh. Archie is still a club legend, indeed only a few months ago inducted into the Hall of Fame. I’ve seen nothing but positive comments from Thistle fans responding to his new job at Motherwell. It was tough at the end of his managerial spell and obviously it didn’t end in the way anyone would’ve wanted with McCall recently but I’d say he’s still well respected, people have a lot of time for his long-commitment to the club, and he’d receive a good reception at Firhill if he turned up on any given Saturday. 

[jagsfan57]

Maybe, I should have added in some supporters eyes.

[jagfox]

17 hours ago, capt_oats said:

What's the general consensus on Archibald as a coach?

That's him been announced as our (Motherwell) Lead Development Coach so he's looking after our Reserves and u18s.

Did a spot of youth coaching as he wound down his playing career. Then stepped in when Jackie McNamara jnr went to Tannadice.

As said, happy to give a young player a chance. Could really work well if Motherwell still have a good recruitment at u18/ reserve level. 

Didn't end well for him at Firhill (twice), but he is a good guy and I wish him well in his new role.

[eindhovendee]

This is a story in today's online Times which is quite a grim read. I've copied and pasted the whole thing as it is behind a paywall, I've removed the photos.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/john-lambie-ignored-physio-who-abused-at-partick-thistle-and-motherwell-t0tqw307w

He was a famous and much-loved Scottish football manager but the late John Lambie, who led Partick Thistle and Hamilton Academical to success, has been accused of failing to halt a sexual predator who preyed on younger players.

Former footballers have come forward to tell how they tried to get him to stop the abuse but nothing happened, leaving them with lifelong mental scars.

CHAPTER ONE

The clown prince of Whitburn

 

His ink-stained fingers and fascination with the pranks of Lord Snooty and Dennis the Menace led classmates to refer to him as “Beano”.

However, John McCready Lambie became lionised for his own outrageous antics which were every bit as colourful and cartoonish as his childhood idols.

In his four spells at the helm of Partick Thistle — Glasgow’s underdog third force — this cantankerous former milkman drove a cart and horses through the staid world of Scottish football

After being told that Colin McGlashan, his hapless striker, had no idea who he was after a head collision, Lambie quipped: “Tell him he’s Pelé and get him back on”.

Shrouded in cigar smoke and with a face as craggy as a West Lothian slag heap he was hailed as a wisecracking working class hero.

Even his most loyal players, who were accustomed to being given a tot of whisky before kick off, protested when he ordered them to imbibe an oddly coloured concoction one Saturday.

“What is this stuff gaffer?,” one implored. “It’s a new kind of pigeon feed,” Lambie explained, a cheroot dangling from his lip. “I wanted to see if it made you lot any faster before I gave it to mine.”

The results he delivered, however, were not to be sniffed at.

On January 31, 1987 a makeshift squad of journeymen he had assembled at lowly Hamilton Academical dumped Graeme Souness’s Rangers, the most expensive team then ever assembled north of the border, out of the Scottish Cup.

Lambie, who brought players such as Frank McAvennie, right, to Firhill Stadium, is revered at Partick with the slogan “Liberté, égalité, Lambie” still brandished

 

He twice led his beloved Thistle to the premiership — and kept them there — while operating on budgets that would have had his counterparts at Ibrox and Celtic Park howling with laughter.

Lambie’s habit of producing miracles on a shoestring, and repeatedly reviving the club’s fortunes, led to him being installed in Partick Thistle’s hall of fame.

On his death, aged 77 in 2018, the club announced that the North Stand, home to their most vociferous fans, would be permanently renamed in his honour.

Every second Saturday red and yellow banners with the revolutionary slogan “Liberté, égalité, Lambie” are brandished at Firhill Stadium. His place in the pantheon of Scottish football greats appeared assured.

However, disturbing new evidence has emerged which suggests that the clown prince of Whitburn brought something far more noxious than avian pick-me-ups into his dressing rooms.

CHAPTER TWO

Something wicked this way comes

 

Gary, a gifted 20-year-old, was left in searing pain when he sustained an injury playing for Partick in the summer of 1991. It was nothing, however, compared to the life-changing agony he suffered when he reported for treatment with John Hart, the club physiotherapist.

“Hart was a greasy wee guy who was bursting out of his tracksuit,” he recalled. “He had a horrible shuffling walk and his head was always down facing the ground. He looked exactly how you’d imagine a sex offender to look.”

That is exactly what he proved to be.

“Hart started off asking me creepy questions about my sex life and kept insisting he needed to massage the glute muscles in my backside,” he said. “He started touching the insides of my thighs and then my groin area.”

John Hart died in 1995 before he was even questioned about the series of allegations

 

Horrified, he confided in Lambie, a man he revered and respected, and begged him to intervene. “John laughed it off,” Gary recalled. “It was like it was some kind of joke. He told me that was just how Hart was.”

He reluctantly returned for treatment only for the abuse to escalate.

“It progressed over a number of weeks and culminated with him inserting his fingers into my back passage,” he said. “I went to see John again in his small manager’s office and he said, ‘Are you sure he wasn’t checking for any other damage?’

“I told him that he was meant to be treating my knee and it was nowhere near my backside.

“Nothing was done about it and Hart was allowed to continue as normal. I was devastated and left as soon as I could.
Lambie was hugely respected and had some unusual ways of motivating his team. However, one former player says he brushed John Hart’s abuse “under the carpet”

Haunted by flashbacks and dogged by depression his footballing career, which had begun with him representing his country at under-21 level, failed to reach the heights it should have done.

“It destroyed me mentally,” he said. “I lived my life in darkness for many, many years. It was heartbreaking for my family to see me in such pain.”

Hart, in contrast, received praise for the “innovations” he brought to the club.

“Relaxation has become the key to Thistle’s preparations,” reported The Glasgow Evening Times. “Jacuzzis and saunas are now the order of the day. John Lambie gives great credit to John Hart for his efforts.”

Last December, Gary wrote directly to Gerry Britton, a former Partick striker who is now the club’s chief executive, and made a fresh appeal for help.

“It is simply incredible that John Lambie continues to hold pride of place in your hall of fame, he wrote. “He should be in the hall of shame.

“This has had a profound and lifelong impact on me and the shameful disregard for the abuse suffered by me at your club can no longer simply be shoved under the carpet or remain a dirty secret. I appreciate your time reading this letter and I can only hope that you and the club give time for reflection on your stance.”

Gary, speaking out after legal efforts to hold the club to account proved fruitless, insists he has received no response from Britton or anyone else at the club. “I would like them to acknowledge my letter and show some basic respect to me,” he said. “They are a big club with a board filled with businesspeople and lawyers.

“They are educated men and women, but not one of them has had the decency to respond. I would like them to invite me in and give me a personal apology.”

Partick Thistle said “ongoing legal proceedings at that time” meant that “direct correspondence was not considered appropriate”.

The club stressed that Gary’s legal representatives had been informed of their stance.

A spokesman insisted that the safety and wellbeing of children and young people involved with the club was of paramount importance. “Everyone associated with Thistle is appalled at the extent of allegations of historic abuse in Scottish football,” he said

“The club reiterates its public apology to anyone personally affected by historic abuse within the game. We continue to urge anyone who may have been affected to contact Police Scotland, the club and the Scottish FA who continue to provide sources of support.”

CHAPTER THREE

Who knew what and when?

 

Close friends of John Lambie revealed he repeatedly rejected invitations to write his memoirs, spurning the opportunity to secure a hefty fee.

“John’s response was, ‘If I was to write a book I’d have to tell stories about people that I don’t want to badmouth’,” one said. “He said, ‘I’d need to make it truthful to do it properly.’ ”

Confidants of “the gaffer” insist he took swift action to root out the predator within Partick Thistle. “My understanding was that John wanted rid of Hart as soon as the allegations came to light,” one said. “I heard he was raging about it.”

Partick Thistle confirmed that Hart had been banished from the club in 1992, a year after Gary’s pleas and warnings appeared to fall on deaf ears.

“As part of a proactive response to the emergence of alleged abuse in football, Partick Thistle identified one historic allegation of abuse made against a former club employee, who is now deceased, it said in a statement.

“The employee worked for the club for two years as a physiotherapist.”

“As soon as the alleged abuse was raised in 1992 the club dismissed the individual with immediate effect.”

A former senior player at the club claimed that he and other first team members were informed of the nature of the allegations — raised by an individual whose identity is unknown — that had led to Hart’s dismissal.

However, it has emerged that when he died of alcoholism in 1995, without ever facing charges or being questioned by police, Patrick Thistle paid lavish tributes to him.

“Many people rated John Hart as one of the best, if not the best physio in the country,” an article in the club’s official matchday magazine said. “John Lambie and his backroom staff rated him very highly indeed. He worked miracles for a number of Thistle players to get them fit on Saturdays.

“John also had a most incredible sense of humour which was marvellous for morale and it is that, along with his amazing ability, which will be so sadly missed.”

It confirmed that club representatives had paid their respects at his funeral. “Our deepest sympathies go to John’s family,” it announced.

Alan, not his real name, insists he received little sympathy when he reported Hart’s abuse to Lambie in 1988, when was a youth player with Hamilton Academical.

“Hart told me to take my boxer shorts off and tried to touch me,” he said. “He told me that this was what he did with the senior players. Hart tried to fondle me and when I said ‘No’ he started to touch himself.”

Alan stopped attending training but was reluctantly persuaded to return. “As soon as I went back to treatment he started touching me inappropriately again and tried to get me to touch his penis,” he said. “I got up and left.”

He claims he and his parents then attended a meeting in the club boardroom with Lambie and other officials. “Lambie assured me and my parents that Hart would be dealt with, but we never heard anything back from them again,” he said.

“That was the end. All I ever wanted to do was to play football. “To get signed up by my hometown club had been a dream come true, but I left and never came back.”

John Lambie is regarded as Partick’s “greatest leader” but is alleged to have helped cover up his physio’s attacks on young players

Alan established a successful career, away from football, but his progress was hampered by crippling panic attacks. “The memories kept eating away at me over the years,” he said.

He has since given interviews to Police Scotland, as has Gary.

“Every time I saw Lambie on TV all I could think about was standing in front of him in the boardroom, with my mum and dad, asking for help,” he said. “He had the chance to stop Hart from ruining more lives, but he did nothing. To me, that eclipses anything else he achieved.”

Before his death Lambie insisted he had no memory of being confronted by Alan and his parents.

Hamilton Academical did not respond to a request for comment. A club source said Hart had been employed at the club, on a freelance basis, in 1988. “Everyone at Hamilton was shocked and horrified when these allegations came out,” he said.

CHAPTER FOUR

The evidence mounts

 

Investigators who compiled a Scottish FA-commissioned review into sexual abuse within the national game were left deeply disturbed by testimony which further exposed John Hart’s depravity.

“He was a prolific abuser, an opportunist and a groomer,” one former member of the team said.

“I’m convinced the cases we are aware of are just the tip of the iceberg.”

They gathered evidence from a man who was raped and repeatedly sexually assaulted by the portly physiotherapist when he was aged just 13 and 14.

Hart groomed the boy by buying him football boots and shirts, while taking him to Partick’s Firhill stadium for treatment.

“He refused to accept payment for his services which the family saw as a huge gesture of kindness,” the review’s final report, published in 2021, noted. “The alleged abuse started during his second treatment and was in the form of sexualised touching and this subsequently progressed to rape

Partick have named a stand at Firhill stadium in Lambie’s honour

The document recorded that Hart “used his influence to get him a trial at Partick Thistle FC”, but added: “He remained at Partick Thistle for about 18 months until he could no longer endure the sexual abuse to which he says he was being subjected.

“Almost 30 years afterwards he still experience chronic mental health problems and has attempted suicide.”

The report also features testimony from a former Pollok United Juveniles player who was sexually assaulted by Hart, aged 16, in Glasgow after he offered him treatment without charge for a persistent injury.

“He felt his personality changed from the day of the incident and has also attempted suicide,” it said.

The dossier suggests that Hart’s predilections would have been known about.

“It is possible that a number of people in Scottish football had suspicions concerning Hart’s alleged activities at the time,” it states.

“An ex-senior player at Patrick Thistle told the review that the first team were told of his departure from the club [in 1992] and the nature of the allegations.”

One review insider, who helped to compile the report, believes it is not credible that Lambie had no knowledge of the sexually inappropriate conduct of his colleague; a key member of his backroom team.

“Hart used sexualised language in the dressing room and would say things like, ‘Anybody who scores a hat-trick today is getting a blow job’,” he said. “Everyone in the clubs he was involved in knew what he was like and what to expect from him.”

“There was a close partnership between Lambie and Hart that went on for several years.”

Lambie, a regular churchgoer, jettisoned his pastoral responsibilities when he introduced a club chaplain in 1998; a first for Scottish football.

“If you’ve got any f***ing problems don’t f***ing come to me. F***ing go to f***ing him,” he told players when they arrived for training.

The independent review said two former senior staff members at Motherwell FC — which employed Hart, but not Lambie, in the 1980s — “recalled two separate sets of allegations made by parents regarding [Hart’s] inappropriate behaviour towards their sons for which he was dismissed or asked to resign”.

Motherwell did not respond to requests for comment.

Investigators were unable to find evidence that Partick Thistle, Hamilton or Motherwell informed the police of Hart’s alleged crimes while he was alive.

CHAPTER FIVE

The last judgment

 

As an inveterate smoker with a penchant for whisky and profane language, John Lambie appeared to be an unlikely devotee of Christ.

However, for decades he rarely missed a Sunday service at Brucefield Parish Church in Whitburn, West Lothian. Towards the end of his life he even flirted with American-style evangelism, with gospel singers belting out Oh Happy Day at his funeral in 2018.

“I go to church like anyone else, to ask for forgiveness,” he told The Herald in 2002.

Lambie was not certainly not averse to unleashing Old Testament-style wrath in the dressing room. “I’ve kicked hot tea in players’ faces through temper,” he admitted in 2003.

“I once hit a player in the jaw with a dead pigeon. I was going to bury it so I put it in a box and took it into the ground. It was a bit of fun really.”

He went further still, a decade earlier, when Davie Irons, his star defender, left Thistle to join a rival club. “He might get a bad injury or something like that,” he raged. “Hell mend him. He deserves whatever he gets.”

However, Lord Hamilton found against him when Irons and another former player took Thistle to the Court of Session after the club failed to pay the bonuses it owed them.

“I do not accept Mr Lambie’s evidence as either truthful or reliable”, he said. “I found Mr Lambie to be an unsatisfactory witness, prone to extravagance of manner and expression.”

However, one close friend cautioned against judging him too harshly, insisting that attitudes in Scottish football — and society in general — were vastly different in the 1980s and 1990s. “I know he came across to some people as foul-mouthed and angry, but that’s not the John Lambie I knew, although he did swear a lot,” he said.

“There was a compassionate side to John and I think he genuinely cared about the wellbeing of his players. He came to realise that positive encouragement was more effective than simply berating a player and striking fear into them.

“His achievements mean that John is the most loved manager in the history of Partick Thistle by a country mile.”

But after being presented with the new evidence, the friend now accepts — with a heavy heart — that it is likely Lambie was too slow to alert the authorities about the dangers that Hart posed to young players.

“In today’s culture, were such a thing to happen Hart would have been out of the door within a second and rightly so,” he said. “Sadly, these types of things were brushed under the carpet in those days.

“I don’t find it acceptable, but John would have been no different to anybody else in Scottish football at that time. It was the culture of the day, but, as much as I love John, the truth now needs to come out.”

After decades of torment Gary has slowly been able to rebuild his life. He has gained a degree and developed a successful career overseas. “I have found my strength and got my life back on track, but there are so many others who have not been so lucky,” he said.

“I’m going to use my voice to speak out for them. I respected John Lambie and thought he was a genuinely good man; hard but fair. He had Partick Thistle running through his veins.

“But I told him twice that John Hart had sexually abused me and twice he chose to look the other way. I cannot, and will not, ever forget that.”

Some names have been changed.

[Walter]

That's a grim read. 

[JagsCG]

Article does not paint a good picture at all. The club response in the present day seems rather inadequate as well (although anything would be too little too late I'd imagine), I think the story about the scumbag physio has been documented before but had no idea about the extent of Lambie's apparent knowledge of this.

[thistledo]

This has come up before, the article is nothing new really, other than it comes across as if it's trying hard to scapegoat Lambie in the whole John Hart historical abuse allegations, which I'm not sure is particularly fair given he's not here to respond to claims he didn't act quickly enough. This is a horrible and sad situation all round for any victims and for John Lambie's family now due to the article. I see no conclusive evidence that he's done any wrong here and speculating in tabloids just seems quite low.  

If there's anything that can be done officially now in relation to the matter, it should absolutely be done otherwise it's just speculating to sell news articles. 

 

[jagfox]

[jaggyness]

Those results really going for us today. Should put to bed any lingering doubts about a top 4 finish