A big thankyou to all the fans.
After an appeal to the fans last week a number of Jags Fans brought along some of their old Thistle scarves and tops that they no longer needed so that they could be given over to the latest addition to our fan base: the kids from the Roma community. These kids have been attending Firhill for the last three home games of the season and have adopted the Jags as their club.
They come from a youth group in the south side of Glasgow and their visits are part of the club and trust’s community engagement programme. They have learned to sing a couple of Thistle songs and they look forward to coming to Firhill - indeed it was described today by one of the visitors as the best thing that has happened to them in the last two years. They greatly appreciate the moves the club and fans have made in welcoming them into our club. To me, what was great about this was that the club gave them and their workers free admission, the trust paid for their bus fares and the fans gave them their gear. The symbolism in this for me is really important. In this case it was the ordinary fans who directly handed their own personal Thistle things over for these kids to wear. That was the real welcome.
Some of the older teenagers have been working on the idea of having their own football team and one of our fans has stated that he will get them kitted out in full Thistle gear. Now, this offer came just after a similar offer had been made to them by another Glasgow team, but they turned them down in order to stick with “their own team” Partick Thistle. The name of this Roma based team will now be named Govanhill Thistle.
The community really do appreciate the efforts made by the club and fans in welcoming them into the Thistle family. If any of you were lucky enough to see the excitement amongst the young ones when they went through the stuff handed out to them, you would really appreciate how powerful this felt to them. Shirts and scarves were immediately put on. Some of them were also amazed that they were allowed to keep them.
I am no photographer but here is a picture of them just after the final whistle with the gear on. Can I just add that later in the evening around Allison Street and Calder Street in the south side of the city all you could see were kids in Thistle gear singing Thistle songs - a really weird experience, let me tell you. Let me just say a big thankyou to all who contributed and to Dave from the shed for helping hand them out.
If you have any more stuff could you please let me know so that I can arrange to collect and pass on to them during the close season in readyness for 2009-2010 season.