The Thistle Archive

“The forwards did not play the same fine football as the Rangers five but they showed they could snap at a chance and they did what the other five could not do - get a goal. Partick, for the first time in their history thus secured the cup” (SC). “Partick Thistle's success was nothing short of remarkable when it is remembered that the Firhill club at the last moment were compelled, through injuries to Hamilton and McMullan to draft two reserve players (Wilson and Borthwick) into the side” (GH).

28,294 attended the match which was informally boycotted because of the SFA decision to increase the admission from one shilling to two shillings. (95,000 had attended the previous final.) The bare pitch was rock hard, and a slight breeze was blowing across the park. Rangers were at full strength, but Thistle had to make do without international half-back McMullan (sprained ankle) and centre-half Hamilton (illness). McMenemy was preferred to Lauder at inside-left.

Rangers took the game towards Campbell from the start, but their forwards lacked a finishing touch. A full 20 minutes had gone before Thistle managed to ease the pressure. The defence stood firm and repelled Rangers' attacks without ceremony. In that spell, Thistle had only managed to threaten the Rangers' goal once, but another attack changed the game. McMenemy passed to Borthwick (or perhaps Salisbury). He beat his man and sent a fine pass over to Blair who steadied himself and fired a magnificent shot from 20 yards into the corner beyond Robb (who didn't appear to attempt a save) in the Rangers' goal. Encouraged by this, Thistle came more into the game and there were shouts for a penalty just on half-time when Robb appeared to grapple with Kinloch as a cross came over. 1-0 at half-time.

After the break Rangers did most of the pressing but their forwards were poor, and it was Meiklejohn who worried Campbell most with a fierce drive. At the other end, Salisbury had a low drive which was well saved. As the game wore on it looked increasingly likely that Rangers would draw a blank and Thistle defended their slender lead to the end, depriving Rangers of a League and Cup double. Rangers regretted their missed chances - especially in the first half. There was no doubting that, on paper, their forwards were better than Thistle's, but on the day Thistle took their big chance and relied heavily on the defence - as they had done throughout this cup run - losing only 4 goals in 990 minutes of football. Winning without 2 of their best players was all the more impressive.

The Sunday Post report says that Thistle scored while Rangers were down to 10 men when Bowie went off to change a torn jersey. The Glasgow Herald and Scotsman reports make no reference to this. The Dundee Courier report merely says he was “in the pavilion”. In January 1943, the Daily Record recap of the match recorded that Bowie had to leave the field because “the elastic of his breeks broke”.

Footnote: In their report of the Glasgow Cup Final on 27 March 1951, the Evening Times reported that 30 years earlier Thistle had forgotten to bring any champagne and that they borrowed Rangers' to fill the cup. History repeated itself 30 years later when, having beaten Celtic 3-2, Thistle again found themselves without champagne. This time Queen's Park kindly donated some for the celebrations.