When did your club 'make it'?

[DA Baracus]

I don't mean in their history, otherwise my answer is 1961.

I mean for you personally. When did you personally think your club had done it? When did you think your club had overcome everything and delivered? When had they done something that just cemented them emotionally to you?

For me it's a very easy answer. I started going to Pars games in 1990. I don't even mind the first few. I start to recall games from 1993. I really started to go regularly in season 94/95 rather than the 10 or so games my dad took me to previously.

However it's the First Division championship win of 95/96 that got me. Easily my favourite season watching the Pars and I never went to a single away game (my old man couldn't afford it). Only missed 2 home games that season, a 3-0 pumping of St Johnstone and THE Clydebank game. Even as a 9 and 10 year old I knew there was something special about that season. The final game, a 2-1 win at East End in front of circa 16k, sticks with me to this day. That season we were written off over and over and had to come through the death of Norrie McCathie which devastated the club. Craig Robertson earned his place as an all time Pars legend that season for taking on an impossible task and succeeding.

Bert Paton, my all time hero, presided over that season (as well as before and after; who can forget the utter dejection and pain of losing out on the last day the season before and then the playoff defeat?). He was incredibly dignified throughout. His emotion over Norrie's death still moves me to tears. On the Champions video when he can't give his eulogy has me in bits every time (even now I've shed a couple of tears). His words at full time at the Airdrie game still gets me. He was overcome with emotion and I recall being overjoyed as a kid in that crowd. Even remembering it now has me smiling and close to tears. Almost all of my favourite players and guys I'd put in my all time XI are from this team. A team of utter heroes.

I doubt we'll ever have a season like it again. That really made it for the Pars for me. I was a fan before that. After that I was something more.

 

[GiGi]

In my lifetime, never. Still waiting.

[The Mantis]

TBH, I would say watching ICT has been a pretty unique experience up till now. Beat East Stirlingshire in the League Cup in the first game in 1994.  The following Saturday, beat Arbroath 5-2 in the first ever League match to be played in Inverness. Steady progress up the leagues, 2 Scottish Cup semi finals, one League Cup Final, 12 seasons in the top tier punctuated by relegation in 2009 followed by promotion at the first attempt. Scottish Cup winners in 2015 and 3rd place in the Premier, qualified for Europe. Back in the day, we had miraculous results - going ballistic at Parkhead, knocking Ayr out of the cup after being 3-0 down at half time, knocking Hearts out of the League Cup after going 2-1 down and down to 9 men.

The turning point was probably the chairman refusing permission for Dundee Utd to speak to Yogi. In hindsight we should have let him go. Then we could have appointed wisely in true ICT fashion. Instead it dragged on and we had to pay Yogi off while appointing Foran. There’s no longer anything unique about ICT- we’re just another diddy club now. It was great while it lasted.

[CountyFan]

Scottish cup QF win against Hibs, 2010. 

[morrison]

Scottish cup QF win against Hibs, 2010. 

As good as that was, Hibs were still Hibs back then.

Skip forward one round, however...

[Dindeleux]

From 1869.

[D.A.F.C]

Being on the pitch when we won the old second division. Watching the same team, almost, get to the spl and beat rangers in the cup. The 90s team was brilliant though then masterton and yorkston sucked the community out of the team. The calderwood era was boring somehow.

[GordonS]

This thread is a good example of the weakness of the board splitting everyone into their divisions. It's an interesting idea that applies to every football fan.

[vikingTON]

7 minutes ago, GordonS said:

This thread is a good example of the weakness of the board splitting everyone into their divisions. It's an interesting idea that applies to every football fan.

^^^ word salad

[vikingTON]

47 minutes ago, morrison said:

As good as that was, Hibs were still Hibs back then.

Skip forward one round, however...

That was a genuinely tremendous event; not just for your club but for Scottish football as well. Celtic's meltdown afterwards was absolutely fucking hilarious.  

Morton certainly haven't 'made it' to the level befitting of this once-proud football club recently, but I think that the title win in 2014/15 is the definitive moment for me as a supporter; much as the 90s division win did for the OP without being Dunfermline's greatest ever success. The 2002/03 season was clearly a great moment for Morton fans who had been there to see the administration period and our fall - that run in from about seven points behind with five games to go was like from a film script. The Second Division in 2006-07 was by contrast utterly shan: a league won after bottling it the previous three seasons already; there were some great matches including the 3-1 horsing of Kilmarnock on the way but it was a very low-key title season. 

2014-15 was different. It was still at a crap level but the team with by far the biggest budget in the league - Dunfermline - actually ended up finishing 7th in the league.  We had been an utter disgrace the season before and still had a team stacked with jobbers at the beginning of the season, yet managed to win the league despite losing a double figures total of league games. The key feature was the players' attitude: compared to the previous, despicable, 2013-14 campaign, the team scrapped in every game and won something like twenty points in the last five minutes of the matches. A Ross Forbes double at home to Ayr having trailed 0-1 in the 90th minute. A 3-2 victory having been somehow gone 0-2 down at home against Stenny in a crucial weekend in the promotion reckoning in April. Two late winners up at Peterhead and then a clinical 2-0 win down at Stranraer in front of a huge away support on the penultimate weekend of the season. Clinching La Decima - the tenth league title in our club's history - on the final day of the season in front of a typically huge crowd at Cappielow confirmed how great it truly is to follow The Famous. 

[Nightmare]

For me, it was very early in my Thistle-supporting years, which was during the back-to-back promotions in 00/01 to 01/02 after nearly going bust. I didn't experience the Save the Jags era, but started going to games a couple of years later during the promotion runs, and winning the old First Division in 01/02 really sticks with me. The football was ugly, as it pretty much always was with Lambie, but when Martin Hardie was heading in late winners every week nobody gave a f**k. Great crowds back then as well.

A few years down the line, we had to endure Dick Campbell, and the silly old c**t drove away so many fans - some of whom have still never returned. So I'd say the 12/13 promotion team under McNamara/Archibald probably helped "make" our club again for many. It was a lengthy title race against a strong, experienced Morton side, but some of the performances (5-1 vs Dunfermline in particular) and our scintillating attacking play were a joy to watch. Special mention to Dundee United for coming and taking McNamara from us right in the middle of a dire run of away form, and the fog for rolling in that night in Cowdenbeath... but external help aside, it was undeniably a great season as a Thistle fan, and staying up for five seasons thereafter made it a pretty successful era for us. These years in the Premiership were often very frustrating, though - dropping points from winning positions a ridiculous number of times, the inept performances against Celtic, the late bottle-jobs against Rangers, some of the utter impostors masquerading as footballers, who of course ended up getting us relegated and back where we started many years ago. Football, eh?

[AyrshireTon]

Has to be season 79-80 for me.

Two seasons earlier we won a very tight 1st Division and were promoted to the new top 10 Premier League for the first time (Hearts came up in 2nd place). Promotion was clinched after a midweek 3-1 win over Airdrie with incredible scenes all round the ground. Benny Rooney shaped a team that consolidated its position in the Premier in 78-79, and would spend five consecutive seasons in the top flight. Our second season would be our strongest. The actual football at times was great. Endless grudge matches with Hearts and Fergie's Aberdeen.

This was an era when TV covered only two games, Sportcene on a Saturday night and Scotsport on Sunday. It wasn't always the ugly sisters who featured either, as a quick glance through youtube will show. October 3rd 1979 saw the start of a run of three consecutive Morton games covered - a 2-2 draw at Ibrox, a 1-0 home win over top-of-the-league Celtic (their first defeat of the season) and a 4-1 win at Firhill. On 3rd November we played St. Mirren at home in a monsoon. It ended 0-0 with Andy Ritchie missing the first of only two penalties he ever missed at Morton (it stuck in the mud short of the goalline). Elsewhere league leaders Celtic lost 2-0 at Rugby Park. Benny Rooney's Morton went top of the Premier League on goal difference, with a part time team.  We then won 2-1 at Aberdeen and stayed top. A 2-0 win over Dundee saw us drop to 2nd as Celtic won 3-0 against Hibs. We reached the League Cup semi-final, seeing off Kilmarnock on penalties.

December is when it all changed. Aberdeen (who would win the league) deservedly won the semi-final 2-1 - no arguments there. The same cannot be said for the home game against Rangers and our trip to Parkhead. Two criminal refereeing decisions (a red card because a Rangers player feigned contact and a blatantly offside Celtic goal) contributed to two defeats. This took the wind from our sails we slipped, eventually finishing 6th. Bristol City would beat us in the semis of the Anglo Scottish Cup. We took only 2 points from our last 10 - another 2 would have seen us in the UEFA cup.

We'd reach the Scottish Cup semi finals the following season (in the process seeing Andy Ritchie score one of the most memorable goals ever seen at Cappielow) and then spent two seasons trying to avoid relegation.

[ICTChris]

TBH, I would say watching ICT has been a pretty unique experience up till now. Beat East Stirlingshire in the League Cup in the first game in 1994.  The following Saturday, beat Arbroath 5-2 in the first ever League match to be played in Inverness. Steady progress up the leagues, 2 Scottish Cup semi finals, one League Cup Final, 12 seasons in the top tier punctuated by relegation in 2009 followed by promotion at the first attempt. Scottish Cup winners in 2015 and 3rd place in the Premier, qualified for Europe. Back in the day, we had miraculous results - going ballistic at Parkhead, knocking Ayr out of the cup after being 3-0 down at half time, knocking Hearts out of the League Cup after going 2-1 down and down to 9 men.
The turning point was probably the chairman refusing permission for Dundee Utd to speak to Yogi. In hindsight we should have let him go. Then we could have appointed wisely in true ICT fashion. Instead it dragged on and we had to pay Yogi off while appointing Foran. There’s no longer anything unique about ICT- we’re just another diddy club now. It was great while it lasted.

Agree with this post, especially the bit about letting Yogi go to United.

For me, winning the First Division in 2004 was a huge moment. We had great teams in the lower leagues but we’d never made a sustained title run in the second tier until the season before, when Pele took his final Caley team on an amazing run. He left and Robertson couldn’t keep it going -I don’t think that we would’ve got any closer to the title that season if Pele had stayed. We didn’t have a balanced squad at that time really. Robertson then had a full preseason, and brought in David Bingham and Barry Wilson which was a real statement of what we were looking to achieve. That season we were always behind until going on a run in the final eight games to take the title - before that Caley had always been the sort of team who could beat anyone in our day but not go in the sustained run that’s needed to win a championship.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1980

[Mark Connolly]

94 Scottish Cup Final.

As good as the 80s were, we never managed to win the Scottish Cup. We had lost in 6 Finals. 1 in a replay, two in extra time, and another two to goals in the last 5 minutes. In 1994, we had barely avoided relegation, and were utter dogshite. Rangers were going for a "Double Treble".

Then Christian Dailly's arse got in the way of Ally Maxwell's clearance, Craig Brewster put it in, and we went fucking mental.

2010 Cup Final and "One Team in Asda" was fun too.

[Savage Henry]

10 hours ago, virginton said:

That was a genuinely tremendous event; not just for your club but for Scottish football as well. Celtic's meltdown afterwards was absolutely fucking hilarious.  

 

The matchday thread when Craig scored that goal is Pie and Bovril as a genuine community.  Real celebration right across the board.  Even the trolls kept quiet.  For County, it absolutely was the moment when they "made it."