Partick Thistle - The Early Years
1875-76 New Beginnings
The first recorded match played by Partick Thistle was against the exotically named “Valencia”, not a side from Spain, but another local junior side, on the 19th February 1876. The North British Daily Mail gave this contemporary report, brief and to the point:
PARTICK THISTLE v VALENCIA –
Played on the ground of the former, and resulted in their favour by one goal to nothing.
The home ground refered to was Overnewton Park.
A return match against Valencia was organised for the following month, but unfortunately no result was recorded in the contemporary press.
The following week, the 18th March, saw another home tie for Partick Thistle, this time against Jordanhill, and the North British Daily Mail reported another 1-0 home win for Thistle.
Although there was no shortage of similarly new clubs springing up around Partick – Partick Academy, Partickhill, Partick Ramblers, Partick Violet, Kelvinbank, and the top club of the area Partick – Partick Thistle played only two further games in the remaining two months of the season.
First Thistle faced and beat Smithfield 2-1 in an away game, before the most convincing result of ther fledgling history was recorded – a 3-0 home win over Whiteinch Thistle in the last game of the 1875-76 season.
I am fascinated as I live in jordanhill and see that the second ever game played by thistle was against jordanhill.
Any further info on the game or history of the jordanhill team appreciated.
David
Detail on those early games was very sparse David. That’s all I’ve ever been able to find about that game. There might be more references to Jordanhill in those contemporary papers but I wasn’t looking out for them.
Teams at that level would have been pretty informal – not a club as such, probably just a group of friends and acquaintances getting together.