13th Feb 1993 Partick Thistle 0 Dundee United 4 (SFL Premier Division - game 29)

matches:1992-93: ← 35game 3637 →

51y, 11m, 11d	John Lambie	Jim McLean

Gary Peebles; Martin Clark; Leigh Palin; Julian Broddle
Bobby Law; Ian Cameron [i]; Davie Irons; Paul Kinnaird

		Scott Crabbe (0-1, pen 1 min); Paddy Connolly (0-2, 65 mins); Paddy Connolly (0-3, 73 mins); Duncan Ferguson (0-4, 80 mins)

Leigh Palin (Colin McGlashan, 24 mins); Martin Clark (Ian Cameron [i], 54 mins)		Scott Crabbe (David Hannah, 84 mins)

24y, 6m, 24d	Andy Murdoch	Alan Main
26y, 0m, 7d	Gary Peebles	Mark Perry
30y, 3m, 7d	Don McVicar	Maurice Malpas
27y, 2m, 4d	Paul McLaughlin	Dave Bowman
31y, 4m, 2d	Grant Tierney	John Clark
24y, 4m, 0d	Martin Clark	Dave Narey
24y, 0m, 3d	George Shaw	Scott Crabbe
31y, 1m, 10d	Albert Craig	Billy McKinlay
22y, 3m, 24d	Gerry Britton	Michael O'Neill
27y, 5m, 1d	Leigh Palin	Duncan Ferguson
28y, 3m, 12d	Julian Broddle	Paddy Connolly

26y, 11m, 26d

28y, 10m, 27d	Colin McGlashan	David Hannah
26y, 5m, 20d	Ian Cameron [i]	Grant Johnson

TTA report

United were already in the lead (pen, 1) when a shot hit a stanchion and bounced out. Clark (already booked) handed the ball to the goalkeeper who cleared up field and play continued! Thistle (without the suspended Irons) were outplayed and United (spurred on by a sense of injustice) scored 65, 73 and 80.

Media report

15-Feb-1993, Glasgow Herald

Thistle leave back door open… TO the destruction of Partick Thistle by Dundee United there was more than the 4-0 score shows and there was less. United had not four but five palpable hits. According to every heard opinion afterwards they had the ball fairly and physically in the net one more time than the referee saw. As for Thistle, their nil account is too rich. To be exact, it ought to show a deficit. At the end of an afternoon of bizarre trading they found themselves holding what it has become sadly fashionable to call negative equity.

Hindsight may show it was a turning-point game that had less significance for itself than for the future. Dundee United added power to their perfectionism. They went looking for profit. They were keen to punish. Real soon they may be more like their old selves. One problem may have been the lack of cohesion. On the one hand they have masters of their trade like Dave Narey and Maurice Malpas, on the other hand they have apprentices. Missing have been enough good workmen and honest hod carriers. At Firhill any such gap was filled by the simple, solid efficiency of Mark Perry and the intense diligence of Dave Bowman. To express all that good complicated stuff Jim McLean, the Dundee manager, used fewer words. Well, of course, he did. (Not that it matters, but he enters a press room as if he sniffed a trap baited with rotten cheese. Now you see him, now you don’t. His entrance and exit are one seamless movement.) Anyhow, what he said was: “We had the penetration we lacked in recent weeks.” Penetration in Saturday’s context amounted to the sharpness it takes to burst balloons. Thistle were so hapless they were almost endearing. They lost a penalty, scored by Scott Crabbe after one minute, but things did not go so well for them thereafter.

Three times in the second half Thistle left their backyard unpopulated by defenders. Like stealing a neighbour’s chickens, an irrepressible Pat Connolly nicked in a couple of goals, leaving Duncan Ferguson, who had an industrious game, to pinch the fourth (or in unrecorded truth, the fifth) by beating keeper Andy Murdoch with a header from the edge of the penalty area. The goal that wasn’t happened on half-time, when a shot by Connelly rebounded from a stanchion. Referee Mottram and a linesman seemed to leave a decision to each other. It was as if they formed a two-man committee on the subject. So a quick (and difficult) decision was fudged, as is often the way with committees. As to how Thistle can regroup to meet Hibernian tomorrow, be glad it is their problem.

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