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| Martin Klein |
 Martin Klein was born on Monday, 2nd July, 1984, in Brno, South Moravian Region. The 6' 2 (12st 10lbs) defender joined Alan Archibald's Thistle for a trial period in July, 2013, having most recently been with Ferencváros. Aged 29, he made his debut appearance on Saturday, 13th July, 2013, in a 4-3 friendly win away to Dumbarton. There were no goals for Martin during his trial period with Thistle. He played his second and last game for the club on Tuesday, 16th July, 2013, in a 0-0 friendly draw away to Livingston. Martin's club-list included Sparta Prague, Teplice, Konyaspor, Ferencváros, Partick Thistle, Kaysar, Zhetysu, Motorlet Prague, Birkirkara, Viktorie Jirny, Benátky nad Jizerou, Rakovník and Kickers Selb. |
 Martin could play as a defensive midfielder or as centre back and did so over the course of his 20 year career in the men's game. Interestingly, he was a product of the Brno youth academy, that club having been the first-ever continental visitors to Firhill way back in 1963! Full of promise from a young age, Martin represented the national team at every level, from boy to man. Sparta Prague were his first club beyond boys football and, although game time was measured in a small number of minutes, he was involved in match day squads in the 2000-01 season when they became champions. He had a short loan spell at Teplice in 2001-02 and on returning to his parent club he really made a name for himself on 27 February 2002 when he scored a goal in a 1–2 loss against Panathinaikos in the 2001–02 UEFA Champions League, at the age of just 17 years and 241 days. At the time, he was the second-youngest scorer in Champions League history! Again Martin only had fringe involvement in the Sparta first-team in their title-winning season of 2002-03. He moved permanently to Teplice in 2004 where he settled for 7 years, making 167 league appearances and finding the net on 12 occasions. In his early days at the club, Martin became a regular with the national U-21 team, making 21 appearances. The 24-year-old Martin finally did win a full international cap on 5th June 2009, keeping a clean-sheet in a 1-0 friendly win at home to Malta. This capped off a memorable season in which Teplice won the Czech Cup, two massive career highlights for the player. Seemingly keen for adventure and new experiences, Martin transferred to Konyaspor of the Turkish Süper Lig for season 2010-11, before spending two full seasons in Hungarian football with Ferencváros. He was happy there and scored 5 goals in 39 league appearances, and added a League Cup winners medal to his collection, but his contract was not renewed come the end of season 2012-13. At that time, newly promoted Partick Thistle were in the market for an experienced central defender to bolster their Premier League squad, and Alan Archibald and Scott Paterson, no strangers to the art of defending, ran their eyes over Martin over the course of two pre-season friendly games in July 2013. No deal materialised however, and Mexican defender Gabriel Piccolo was the surprise preference just a week or two later. Martin's footballing career from thenon was extremely varied over the next 8 seasons. As well playing with a few more teams in his home country, he experienced club football in Kazakhstan, Malta and Germany. Clearly, life was never dull for Martin! |
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