B McPhail 10
Fleming xx, 40
Match Information
Attendance: 20,000
Referee: T Dougray (Glasgow)
Matchday: Saturday
Match Trivia
For the last half-hour of the first half, Partick Thistle, when only a goal down, presented such a challenge to Rangers as to seem capable of running them to a close finish. But the bottom fell out of the match in the elven minutes following the brief interval. In that short period Rangers collected three more goals, and then, as usually happens in such cases, nothing would go right for the Thistle forwards even when they were doing well. Rangers were the stronger, more cohesive and faster-moving team, and on pressure had a substantial advantage. In the first twenty minutes the Ibrox forwards and half-backs were in complete command, and the one goal scored by McPhail, after ten minutes, did not reflect the run of the play. When the thistle forwards began to get the ball, they were able to put the Rangers defence to the test, and more than once the equaliser was not far off. The finishing, however, was not up to standard, due to a large extent to the skid on the ball and the difficulty of obtaining balance for the shot. The home forwards discovered that before the Firhill men did. Only a goal down at the interval was quite good for the Thistle, but then came fireworks. Thirty seconds after the restart, Fleming got the ball from the right, cut in a little, and shot a beautiful goal, the ball going high all the way and completely beating Jackson. Four minutes later, the Ibrox forwards came on strongly again, and Fleming, taking a pass from McPhail, pushed the ball from his left to his right foot, and shot a third goal. There was no holding the Rangers attack hereabout, and when Fleming let go another whiz-bang a defender handled, and from the penalty kick Marshall made the total four. The crowd wanted English to take the kick, but Sam did not appear to be too keen. It was some time before the Thistle could shake themselves out, but eventually they did, and after half an hour Simpson dodged into the penalty area, where he was brought down. Here was a chance to put abetter face on things, but Torbet sent yards wide from the penalty kick. Hamilton and Jackson were good goalkeepers, but it was the Thistle man who got the work to do. His only mistake was in going out when the first goal was scored. Gray and Rae were the best of the backs, for both Calderwood and McAulay were uncertain in clearing. Rangers half-backs forced the game better than the Thistle trio. Brown was consistently good, and McDonald played a finished game. I liked Donnelly, who used his head to good purpose. He had a heavy job, for English was terribly elusive and both Marshall and McPhail for a long time were coming on with any amount of power. Pope did fairly well under the circumstances, and Ballantyne and Torbet were an excellent wing during the last half-hour of the first half, but there was always a lack of finishing ability inside. Flemings two goals were additional to some fine centres. Archibald was full of running, and just erred in sometimes holding to the ball on the run. But he was one of the successes in a forward line that played some remarkable football for the conditions. Torbet missed 75th minute penalty
