| Wally Ralston |
 Walter Ralston was born on Thursday, 3rd October, 1935, in Glasgow. The 6' 1 defender signed for Davie Meiklejohn's Thistle on Monday, 29th August, 1955, having most recently been with Ashfield. Aged 20, he made his only appearance on Wednesday, 30th November, 1955, in a 4-3 friendly defeat at home to Royal Scots. There were no goals for Wally in his one-off appearance for Thistle. His club-list included Ashfield, Partick Thistle and Aldershot. Wally died on Sunday, 4th October, 2009, in Glasgow, aged 74. |
 Davie Meiklejohn took on this right back from Ashfield in the mid 1950s, but he was destined to remain in the reserves, excepting his one-off appearance in a midweek friendly against a Royal Scots army side which featured Donlevy and Mathers of Thistle. Trialist Alex Hastings scored on his debut with a powerful 20-yarder (40) then Davie McParland made it 2-0 at half-time, but 4 goals in the 2nd half more than cancelled out a 2nd McParland goal. Wally left Firhill for Aldershot in June, 1958. A fit athletic man, Wally loved swimming, hill walking and playing a round of golf. Away from the football, he started his working life as a welder in the shipyards and rose through the ranks to manage the training of all the apprentices in Govan. In 1988 he required major surgery to remove a blockage in his bile duct and part of his liver was removed. The operation was carried out at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He had received a blood transfusion during the surgery and only 20 years later, when he was referred to the Beatson West of Scotland Oncology Centre with shadows on his liver, did he discover that he had been infected with the Hepatitis C virus, which explained why he had been fatigued in the years since the operation. He died six months after he was told about his diagnosis, leaving his family devastated and angry about how he had been treated. |
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