Partick Thistle: How Firhill club won League 1 title after tumultuous year

Partick Thistle hammered Falkirk 5-0 to clinch the League One title

The last 13 months have been among the most tumultuous in the 145-year history of Partick Thistle.

The Glasgow club wrapped up the Scottish League 1 title in style with a 5-0 thumping of Falkirk on Thursday and secured an immediate return to the second tier, from which they were relegated just over a year ago in controversial circumstances.

Arbitrations, statements, and rancour have been part of the deal for the Maryhill outfit, who were a top half Premiership side just four years ago.

With the help of defender Richard Foster, BBC Scotland takes a look back at how the title was won....

• Thistle seal League 1 title

A cruel demotion

The summer of 2020 was one of bitterness and fury in Scottish football. After heated debate, briefings, counter-briefings and the shambles of Dundee's missing vote, Thistle were consigned to relegation from the Championship on a points-per-game basis.

Given the Glasgow club were only two points behind Queen of the South at the bottom of the division with a game in hand when the season was halted in March, the decision caused uproar.

Thistle joined Hearts in legal action against the SPFL after enough clubs failed to support league reconstruction, seeking reinstatement into the second tier or £2m in compensation. The club was fighting for its very existence.

"I ask everyone associated with Thistle to never forget today," chairman Jacqui Low said after the case was lost. "To never forget how it feels to be relegated unfairly.

"We have every right to be angry. So let's use that anger as the fuel that drives our campaign in 2020/21. Our fate and our success once again lies in our own hands and our hands only."

Slow start in League 1

With the farrago off the pitch briefly subsiding, Thistle's bid to bounce back was in the hands of manager Ian McCall, who had returned for a second spell in September 2019 after a successful stint at Ayr United.

A Thistle fan with experience of getting Ayr out of League 1 (twice), it seemed the perfect match. However, a slow start in which they won just four of their first 10 games put the manager and his squad under serious pressure.

Goals were not flowing, and an injury crisis labelled by McCall as the worst he has ever seen in his two decades as a manager, all added up to the Maryhill club sitting in fifth, outside the play-offs and six points behind Falkirk.

"We just never took our chances," full-back Richard Foster tells BBC Scotland.

"The game that stands out is probably Dumbarton at home. We could've quite conceivably won 7-0, but we drew 0-0. It got to the point where we started losing goals as well. It wasn't a good combination."

The shutdown boost

Then, came a second lockdown, with Leagues 1 and 2 put back into hibernation in January with no sign of when they would be able to return.

As one of only two established full-time teams in the third tier (along with Falkirk), Thistle were critical of the decision. Their players and staff were not even allowed to train, while part-time teams in the division above were allowed to continue.

It compounded the sense of injustice from their relegation as well as the subsequent distribution of Scottish government grants which saw part-time sides in the Championship receive £500,000, while Thistle got just £150,000 despite having greater costs.

"It was tough, strange," says Foster. "I'm 20 years in the game and have never experienced that. The manager's even longer in the game and he was saying the same. Does he give us [individual] training? Running?

"We were meeting in pairs to try and do a bit together, but it's not the same. But in a strange way it almost galvanised us more. I know I realised how much I didn't want to retire because I was so happy to be back training."

Title tilt finally takes off

The shutdown may have complicated matters but, ultimately, when League 1 did return on 20 March, Thistle knew what they had to do. A shortened 22-game campaign meant they had 12 games to save their season.

Drawing three of their first four was not the start they would have hoped for, and as they traipsed into the dressing room at Bayview trailing East Fife 2-0, their championship aspirations looked in tatters.

But Brian Graham headed in, and new loan signing Scott Tiffoney snatched a point in the final minute of stoppage time. At that stage Thistle sat seven points behind Falkirk with eight games left. Their task still looked daunting.

"The manager had a sense that that point was going to be a really big one," Foster explains.

"I think he tried to use that. There was a mindset shift to really knuckle down and make sure we go on a winning run. At that point there wasn't much pressure on us, because Falkirk were so far ahead."

From that point, a run of five straight wins, in which they scored 13 goals and conceded none - coupled with Falkirk's collapse in form - propelled McCall's men to the summit.

A subsequent draw with title rivals Cove Rangers put them in the driving seat before Falkirk's visit on Thursday, with Thistle delivering a magnificent performance to thrash their faltering visitors 5-0 and clinch the crown.

Before that game, Tiffoney had taken his tally to nine goals and three assists in 12 appearances, and Graham and Zak Rudden added 13 goals between them during the unbeaten run of 10 games since the restart.

The experience of Foster and 36-year-old Steven Bell, another loan signing from East Kilbride, helped ensure a miserly defence.

"For me, the one was Rudden," says Foster. "He has a lot of talent and ability and he works hard but things just weren't going well for him. Then he scored two in a game and the touchpaper was lit. He took off from there."

The thumping of Falkirk was the icing of the cake, a perfect performance in which they looked every inch a top-end Championship team. It's the division they will be playing next season, the one which they feel they should never have left.

SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster called Thistle "worthy champions" but the club left all their talking to the pitch.