Partick Thistle need to raise £100,000 by the end of the season to avoid administration. It’s not a lot of money and levels of debt are relatively low, but cash flow is the problem. Attendances have been dwindling as they have been elsewhere in Scotland and more fans are needed through the gate.
Partick Thistle need to raise £100,000 by the end of the season to avoid administration. It’s not a lot of money and levels of debt are relatively low, but cash flow is the problem. Attendances have been dwindling as they have been elsewhere in Scotland and more fans are needed through the gate.
Discussions about restructuring the Scottish leagues are intended to boost interest in the game, but many fans think that two top leagues of ten teams each would be boring and that such a structure is only appropriate at amateur level.
Historically the team drew its support from the tenements of Maryhill. In his quirky but insightful book about Scottish football grounds, A Season in Hell, David Bennie notes ‘the number of Glaswegians who profess allegiance to Thistle pose severe statistical sampling problems.’
Apart from those with roots in Maryhill, the team does have a vein of middle class support, but it is often support offered from the armchair rather than the terraces. Lukewarm support from the upmarket West End is justified, as Bennie puts it, by ‘close geographical proximity [and] non-sectarian status’.
Outside of the Old Firm, Partick Thistle is the only club in Glasgow apart from the anomalous case of amateurs Queen’s Park who play at Hampden and attract tiny gates. Clyde, whose orginal base was in the Gorbals and Rutherglen, but drifted round various locations, ended up in the new town of Cumbernauld.