Ian McCall: Partick Thistle boss on his undying passion for the club & rebuilding from rancour

Ian McCall is king of the castle in Glasgow's west end

Two hours in Ian McCall's company would have you convinced that Partick Thistle is the greatest football club there ever was or ever will be, that their boot room is the best boot room, that their toilets are the best toilets, that the water that comes out of their taps can't be beaten, that the shirts that hang in their dressing rooms are the most glorious in the game.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then behold, my friend. "You're in the inner sanctum now," he says as he sits in his office on Thursday afternoon before telling a story that unfolded between these four walls many years ago. For him, this yarn explains the essential greatness of football and football people and the way the game can play merry hell with your emotions.

It dates back to his first spell as Thistle manager, September 2008, and a night when they were hosting Walter Smith's Rangers in a League Cup tie. It's 1-1 at full-time. Into extra time they go. With minutes remaining Thistle's David Rowson is through one-on-one with Neil Alexander, but fails to convert. McCall still looks angst-ridden about it now.

Rangers go up the other end and Pedro Mendes curls one into the top corner. Game over. McCall is crestfallen beyond speech. "The Rangers lads come in here for a drink. Walter is sitting here, I'm there, [Ally] McCoist is there. Walter knows I'm absolutely gutted, so he's being really nice, as usual, because he was such a great man.

"A week earlier, Coisty had played in a testimonial for the late Jamie Dolan at Motherwell. Coisty had just turned 45 and he'd scored a hat-trick. There was a big lull in the room. Nobody was saying much. I'm broken. Walter understands it. McCoist is McCoist. He goes, 'Colly?'

'Aye, what is it?' I say.

'See my hat-trick?'

'Yes…'

'Do you think there's a better over-45 player in the world right now than me?'

"I looked at Walter and he's trying not to laugh and as much as I'm raging I couldn't help but burst out laughing. I mean, it was magnificent. Football is bloody brilliant."

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While McCall was manager of Ayr United he had five offers to leave and rejected every one of them. He was happy there, had great support and a good team, but when Thistle called, well, that was that. Sitting in front of a red and yellow wall and talking about the storied figures in the club's history whose images will soon adorn this space McCall gives the inescapable impression of a man in his element.

Thistle are fifth in the Championship, six points behind leaders Arbroath but with two games in hand in a league that's as tight as a drum. On Friday they host Kilmarnock, now managed by his good friend, Derek McInnes. He's noted, with a smile, how Del has been talking about Killie's potential to be a top-five team in the Premiership. Oh aye?

Friday can't come quickly enough. He looks at the board in his office with the names of his players written in marker and he likes what he sees. Better than two seasons ago when they were bottom of the Championship and then dumped into the tier below when the leagues were called. Thistle were two points off ninth with a game in hand at the time. He'll get back to that, the summer of 2020 when skin and hair flew.

He's talking about the honesty of the team he has put together. Good characters sprinkled with young stars. Zak Rudden - he reckons eight or nine clubs will be watching him on Friday. "He has this thing that a lot of the modern-day strikers don't have, he moves beyond defences and he does it naturally. He only plays one way and it's full-on."

There's also Scott Tiffoney - he'd amazed if there weren't scouts checking him out. "I've reached the stage now where I just want to enjoy watching players and I enjoy Tiffoney. He has something from a bygone era, he just wants to go and beat a full-back."

Thistle striker Zak Rudden aims to add to his season's haul of seven league goals in Friday's meeting with fellow promotion hopefuls Kilmarnock

Thistle have fought back brilliantly from the rancour of the season before last, the truncated Championship that saw them sent down a division, Life is better now. "Oh God, aye, we're miles better now than we were two seasons ago.

"It wasn't a nice place to come into back then. People were getting paid too much money, people didn't care enough, didn't recognise what this club is all about. I'm not saying that the standard of professionalism was bad, but I just felt there were too many excuses made for losing an awful lot of games. People weren't looking at themselves in the mirror. We don't have players that would make excuses now. It's a happy place."

Winning League 1 was a big moment in the healing process from two summers ago. Famously, the club informed the SPFL executive [Neil Doncaster and Murdoch MacLennan] that they were weren't welcome at the title flag day.

"The board backed me on that albeit I think I said it on Sportsound before I'd actually consulted the board, but they were happy. We felt it was the right thing to do. To be honest, I felt a bit uneasy that they [the SPFL hierarchy] felt it was still okay to come. They had a lack of foresight about what they'd actually done.

"I've said before that if we manage to do something this season then they can come in. I'll have nothing to do with them and I'm not sure many of my board will either, but we won't stop them. They'll be brave people to come into Firhill with 10,000 in it, though."

He says he doesn't want to be bitter about the past because bitterness just eats you up. In any case, things are bright now. He says that you have to understood what it is to be a Partick Thistle person. You have to get it. Not everybody does. "I won't tell you who this was, but when I came here as manager of Ayr United I said to somebody here, 'This is an absolutely magic club' and the reply was, 'Yes, it's a smashing wee club'. Smashing wee club? That tells me you don't get it, you just don't get what Thistle are about. What this club is all about is its ability to stand on its own two feet with our identity while on either side you have two giants.

The SPFL executive weren't welcome when Thistle lifted the League 1 title trophy last summer

"I always remember Gerry Britton's last game as my assistant manger. Gerry's a legendary figure here, but he was going away to become a lawyer. It was a Monday night against Morton and his nickname with the punters is the King of Spain, nobody really knows why. We only have theories. On the night he left they were selling paella in the stadium and some of the programme notes were in Spanish and the stadium announcements were in Spanish. That's what makes Partick Thistle. On a summer's night I'll come here with my mate The Groover - we call him The Groover because he's totally ungroovy - and the sun is shining and the stadium is swathed in red and yellow and it's beautiful. Wow."

He goes way back with Friday's sparring partner, McInnes; right back to 2003 when, as Dundee United manager, he signed him from West Brom. By his own admission he never got the best out of McInnes, but what was obvious was the player's leadership and his intelligence. "A magnificent professional. We've been mates for a long time."

And as a mate he went into bat for him when McInnes lost his job at Aberdeen last season."I don't know this, but at Aberdeen there seemed to be a disconnect between Derek and the current chairman [Dave Cormack]. The treatment of Derek was shocking. It was just embarrassing. When I heard he was going to Kilmarnock I texted him and said, 'Are you off your head?' But I can see what he's thinking, Derek is a hugely ambitious boy. He's seen what Stevie Clarke did at Killie."

McCall has an almost childlike enthusiasm for the job he's in. He's 57 going on 17. You compliment him on his array of manager of the month awards in his office and he says he's got another 50 at home. "This place just isn't big enough for all the things I've won." Oh yes, self-mocking humour is another speciality. He's a world class wind-up merchant. That trait has served him well in the game. That and his undying passion. A Thistle man, now and forever.