| Full name | Thistle Football Club | |
|---|---|---|
| Nicknames | The Jags,[1] the East-Enders[2] | |
| Founded | 1875 | |
| Dissolved | 1894 | |
| Ground | 1882–1884: Dalmarnock Park 1884–1892: Beechwood Park,Dalmarnock 1892–1894:Braehead Park,Oatlands | |
Thistle Football Club (also known asGlasgow Thistle[3] andBridgeton Thistle)[4] was a 19th-centuryfootball club based inGlasgow. The club was briefly a member of theScottish Football League Division Two, and has been described as the most insignificant and least successful to have entered the league.[3] It played atBraehead Park during its Scottish League season.
The original Thistle club was among the oldest in Scotland, formed in the wake of rudimentary versions of the game played onGlasgow Green which themselves had roots in the traditionalHandsel Monday holiday mass-participation events,[5] introduced to the city by men fromCallander inPerthshire.[6] They are known to have been active with a club structure by 1868, as that year Thistle were the first opponents faced by the country's oldest documented clubQueen's Park.[7] By 1873 however the club was defunct, with many of its members joiningthe Eastern club.[8]
The revived Thistle was founded in 1875, still playing on Glasgow Green; because the club was still playing there in 1877, the club was originally turned down for membership of the Scottish FA, on the basis that the SFA did not want member clubs without their own grounds.[9] At the time, the area was becoming both densely populated and heavily industrialised, and several aspiring teams formed among the tenements and factories.[10][11] Thistle were early rivals toClyde[4] whose first ground was nearby atBarrowfield Park, which had been the home of Eastern until 1877.
Thistle eventually turned senior in 1878 and started to enter theScottish Cup; the club was also a member of the Lanarkshire association, and won theLanarkshire Cup in 1881, beatingShotts in the final by the odd goal in five, having taken advantage of a goalkeeping slip with 2 minutes to go.[12] That season saw the club'sbest Scottish Cup run, reaching the final 12, albeit helped by two byes.
Thistle switched to theGlasgow Football Association in 1883[13] and became a founder member of theScottish Football Alliance in 1891, by which timeCeltic had been formed in the neighbourhood,[14] quickly attracting bigger crowds.
Although they had struggled in the Alliance competition (finishing bottom of 12 teams in 1891–92 and fifth of 10 the following year),[15] Thistle's Campbell, Mackie, and Gemmell were selected for the prestigiousGlasgow v Sheffield match in 1892.[16] Thistle were one of the clubs invited to form the newDivision Two of the Scottish League for the1893–94 season. However, the club's enforced move to Braehead Park proved costly. The new site was only a short distance away from the streets where their core support resided[17] but on the opposite bank of theRiver Clyde; in previous and future decades it would have been easily accessible viaRutherglen Bridge atShawfield, but the move took place between the demolition of the old bridge at that site (1890) and the completion of its replacement (1896),[11] making travel more difficult during those years via a temporary wooden structure.
Thistle duly failed to make an impact in league competition, suffering some heavy defeats, including a 13–1 reverse at fellow new entrantsPartick Thistle on 10 March 1894,[18][19] the largest defeat in the Scottish League up to that point; it has only been exceeded byDundee Wanderers' 15–1 loss toAirdrieonians the following season.[3] Thistle had beaten their Partick namesakes 6–2 in the Alliance League in October 1892,[20] but by the time they first met in the SFL, Braehead Park was said to have been in a state of disrepair and its team was struggling financially, although in that match the score was only Thistle 3–4 Partick Thistle.[19]
Finishing bottom of the league, the club folded before the re-election meeting, despite takings of £118 at a benefit match betweenSunderland and aScottish Football League XI.[3][21][22] Its final fixture was a friendly against Clyde.[4]
A group of Thistle supporters almost immediately formed a new club,Strathclyde F.C., named after the street where Beechwood Park stood.[4] They entered theJunior setup, initially playing back in Dalmarnock at New Beechwood Park[23] and eventually settling at New Springfield Park (towardsParkhead and close toCeltic Park);[24][25] they won theScottish Junior Cup three times before eventually folding in the 1960s.
The club played in 1" blue and white hooped shirts (at the time, described as stripes), and hose, and white shorts until 1886, with blue (serge) shorts thereafter.[26]
The club started at Glasgow Green, and played across the Clyde at Shawfield in 1881–82. After returning to the north side of the river to play atDalmarnock Park for two seasons,[27] from 1884, the club played at Beechwood Park in theDalmarnock district of Glasgow, fairly close to Glasgow Green[4][28] (not to be confused with theground of that name which was home toLeith Athletic F.C. in the same era).
In 1892 Thistle was unable to use Beechwood Park,[4] and it moved back to the southern side of the river (in theOatlands neighbourhood) to Hibernian Park, the former home of the now-defunctGlasgow Hibernian.[29][30] Thistle re-christened the groundBraehead Park[28][31]
55°50′20″N4°12′52″W / 55.838790°N 4.214379°W /55.838790; -4.214379
