THERE were remarkable scenes at Firhill, Partick Thistle’s ground, before and during the team’s clash with league leaders Rangers on Saturday, January 3.
Frozen pitches had meant the cancellation of both the Celtic-Kilmarnock and Third Lanark-Clyde First Division games, and many fans who would have attended these games flocked to Firhill instead.
Mounted police tried in vain to check the crowd outside the ground, and the gates were closed 20 minutes after the start.
Early in the first half some 2,000 of the estimated 40,000 spectators spilled over the enclosure wall and were allowed to stand on the track. Others clambered onto the covered enclosure roof but were ordered down by police.
At half-time, it was reported, scores of fans who had been allowed in, but had been unable to watch the action, gathered outside to demand their money back.
Even the sacred press box was, as the Glasgow Herald’s Cyril Horne wrote, “filled to uncomfortable overflowing”, with irate journalists finding their seats taken by, amongst others, a Rangers fan and an Thistle supporters’ club official.
Thistle won 2-0, with two goals from George Smith. Rangers remained top of the league that night, one point ahead of Motherwell, and they went on to win the 1958-59 league title.
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