The Thistle Archive

On 16/11/1888 the "Glasgow Evening Post" ran a piece about "a trifling inequality" in the SFA's constitution in that Thistle had two representatives on the SFA Committee - Messrs Boag (representing PT) and Robertson (representing Queen of the South Wanderers).  Both were described as "members of the Partick Thistle" and they took the view that this was hardly fair since it gave Thistle an "undue advantage" in matters concerning the club, eg, an appeal.  It was hoped this anomaly would be rectified "when time arrives".  On 23/11 the scribe admitted that Robertson (the brother of the club captain) was not, in fact, listed as a member in the club's books and that it didn't mean he would be absolutely unbiased because he was a "great admirer and staunch supporter" of PTFC. On 7/12, following a number of letters to the editor criticising the scribe, he retaliated with the fact that Robertson had recently been instrumental in having the name of one of the most competent referees removed from the approved list. He had done so because he had only refereed Glasgow Exhibition matches that season. (Can you guess where this is going?).  It turned out this was same the ref that had refereed the Thistle v Celtic Exhibition match and had awarded Celtic a bitterly disputed late winner. He also claimed that Robertson, 4 days earlier, has suggested postponing protested Scottish Cup "replays" if they clashed with the date of the Glasgow Cup final thus adversely affecting the attendance. The final that season, of course, featured PTFC.  

	An original Thistle Archive publication, 07-Sep-2020.
	Latest edit version 02-Jun-2020.