Partick Thistle
Head to Head

Partick Thistle Football Club was formed in 1876 in the burgh of Partick, which was at that time administratively independent of Glasgow (Partick was not subsumed into Glasgow until 1912). The club's first recorded match (and victory) took place in February against a local junior team, named Valencia. In 1891, Partick Thistle joined the Scottish Football Alliance, one of several competitions set up immediately after the formation of the Scottish Football League in 1890. The club won the Division 2 championship in 1897 and were elected to the Division 1. In 1921 Thistle won the Scottish Cup, beating Rangers 1–0 in the final. Johnny Blair scored the only goal of the game, which was held at Celtic Park. In 1935 the Jags won both the Glasgow Cup and the Charity Cup, competitions that were taken seriously at the time. Although it was over 30 years before Thistle achieved further cup success they not only maintained their First Tier status during this period but finished third in the league in 1947–48, 1953–54 and 1962–63. On 23 October 1971 Davie McParland's team secured the club's most famous result against Jock Stein's Celtic in the League Cup final at Hampden Park, Glasgow. 62,470 fans watched Thistle take a dramatic 4–0 lead at half time with goals from Alex Rae, Bobby Lawrie and Jimmy Bone amongst the many emerging talents in the Thistle squad including Alan Rough, Alex Forsyth and Denis McQuade. Kenny Dalglish pulled a goal back for Celtic, however the final result was never in doubt as Thistle eased to a 4–1 victory. Ironically before the match, former BBC sport broadcaster Sam Leitch stated that "In Scotland, it's League Cup final day at Hampden Park, where Celtic meet Partick Thistle, who have no chance".