Partick Thistle

Also written as Partick.

The club

Partick Thistle were founded in early 1876 and played their first match on 19 February that year, a 1-0 win over a local junior side called Valencia. They have been at Firhill, in Maryhill on the north side of Glasgow, since 1909, which is why the name no longer matches the address; the first match there, on 18 September 1909, was a 3-1 Scottish Qualifying Cup win over Dumbarton Harp in which the visitors scored the ground's first goal. Wikipedia's club article gives the capacity as 10,887 and its Firhill article as 10,102 all-seated; the two were not reconciled by the sources read. The club are the Jags, and also the Maryhill Magyars and the Harry Wraggs. They wore blue for fifty years and have played in red and yellow since the mid-1930s.

Recent seasons

Thistle won League One in 2020/21 and have been a Championship side since, always close and never quite through. They were fourth in 2021/22, fourth again in 2022/23 and lost the Premiership play-off final, third in 2023/24 and lost the play-off semi-final, and fourth in 2024/25. 2025/26 was the best of the run and the most painful: second with 66 points from 36 games, 17 wins, 15 draws and only four defeats, 53 goals scored and 36 conceded. They beat Dunfermline Athletic 3-2 on aggregate in the play-off semi-final and then lost the final 2-1 on aggregate to St Mirren, who stayed up. Fifteen draws in a 36-game season is the number that explains the position. Logan Chalmers and Alex Samuel were joint top scorers with 13 apiece, Samuel leading the league list with nine. Thistle also reached the League Cup quarter-final, losing 4-0 to Celtic, and the Scottish Cup quarter-final, losing 2-1 to St Mirren, and went out of the Challenge Cup in the third round on penalties to Inverness Caledonian Thistle after a 3-3 draw.

Honours and landmarks

The Scottish Cup of 1921, won 1-0 against Rangers, and the Scottish League Cup of 1971, won 4-1 against Celtic after leading 4-0 at half-time, are the club's two major trophies. The 1971 final is the match Thistle are known for outside Glasgow. They have won the First Division six times, most recently in 2013, the Second Division twice, League One in 2020/21, and both the Glasgow Cup and the Charity Cup in 1935. They have never won the top division; their best finishes are third in 1947/48, 1953/54 and 1962/63, and in 2017 they reached the top six of the Premiership for the first time in more than three decades. There have been three European campaigns: the 1963/64 Fairs Cup, out to Spartak Brno; the 1972/73 UEFA Cup, out 4-0 on aggregate to Honved; and the 1995 Intertoto Cup against Metz. Firhill staged the first European Cup tie played in Glasgow, in 1955/56, and its record crowd, 54,728, was for Scotland against Ireland in 1928 rather than for Thistle. The club's own record attendance, record win, record defeat and record transfer fees were not established from the sources read.

Notable scorelines

The 4-1 League Cup final win over Celtic on 23 October 1971 is the club's famous result, four goals inside the first half-hour of the second competitive meeting of the season. Club record wins and defeats are not established. The largest recent score is a 6-0 win over Brechin City at Firhill in the League Cup on 11 July 2026.

Head-to-head notes

Raith Rovers publish all-time head-to-head figures on their match pages and are the best source for Championship records, though the figure they publish for Partick Thistle is a run rather than a total: Thistle have not won a league match at Stark's Park in 13 attempts, their last league win there coming in 2011. Against Stenhousemuir, the two drew 2-2 at Firhill in the Premier Sports Cup on 21 July 2026 and Stenhousemuir won the shootout 5-3, which cost Thistle the group. Against Livingston, they drew 1-1 at Almondvale on 18 July 2026 and lost that shootout 3-2 as well, so Thistle took four points from two draws they might have won. Against Dunfermline Athletic, Thistle won the 2026 Premiership play-off semi-final 3-2 on aggregate; both clubs are in the Championship again. Greenock Morton are the opening-day opponents and no all-time record was established. No published all-time records were established against Arbroath, Ayr United, Inverness Caledonian Thistle or Queen's Park.

Right now (2026/27)

Mark Wilson is the head coach, appointed on 30 May 2025, and was Championship manager of the month in October, January and March of his first season.

The summer has been conducted almost entirely on free transfers. Goalkeeper Josh Clarke joined from Celtic and defender Ben McPherson signed on 29 May. Midfielder Oisin Smyth arrived from St Mirren and forward Euan Henderson from Hamilton Academical on 4 June, midfielder Ben Dempsey from Ayr United on 10 June, forward Seb Drozd from Queen's Park on 17 June and defender Ethan Ingram from Dundee on 9 July. Departures: Scott Martin to Queen's Park on 29 May, Kyle Turner to Raith Rovers on 4 June, top scorer Logan Chalmers to St Johnstone on 21 June, Zander MacKenzie to Queen of the South on 23 June, and Luke McBeth to Ayr United for an undisclosed fee on 29 June, the only fee in either direction.

Friendlies were a 0-0 draw at Pollok on 27 June, an 8-0 win over Kilbirnie Ladeside on 30 June and a 2-2 draw for a Thistle XI at Clydebank on 26 July in Nicky Little's testimonial.

The Premier Sports Cup group stage was strong without being decisive. Thistle beat Brechin City 6-0 at home on 11 July and won 4-0 at Forfar Athletic on 14 July, then drew 1-1 at Livingston on 18 July and lost the shootout 3-2, and drew 2-2 with Stenhousemuir at Firhill on 21 July and lost that shootout 5-3. Nine points, 13 goals scored and three conceded, but second in Group E behind Stenhousemuir on 10. Thistle went through as one of the three best runners-up and are unseeded in the last 16, played on the weekend of 15 and 16 August 2026. The Championship campaign opens away to Greenock Morton at Cappielow on Saturday 1 August 2026 at 3pm.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.