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Match Details

Rangers

3-1

Partick Thistle

League - Southern League
MatchDay 4
Ibrox Park
Saturday
31 August, 1940

Rangers

Jerry Dawson
Dougie Gray
Jock Shaw
Bobby Bolt
Willie Woodburn
George Thomson
Torry Gillick
George Hamilton
Jimmy Smith
David Marshall
Charlie Johnstone

4

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

Partick Thistle

Henderson
Dyer
Curran
Collier
Sutherland
Busby
Newall
Picken
Younger
Sharp
Rodger

Match Information

Goals

J Smith 8, 65
Gillick 72
Smith 82

Match Information

Manager: Bill Struth
Attendance: 12000
Referee: William Webb (Glasgow)

Match Trivia

If only three Thistle forwards hadn’t blundered so badly in the opening minutes of the second half, the Firhill lot were in with a big chance of saving a point, Although Rangers were quite genuine winners in the end. The short, hot spell at the Light Blues goal when Sharp, ‘Murray’ and Rodger threw away priceless chances of beating Dawson could have been a turning point which might have meant anything. Rangers, with everything in their favour in the first half, turned only a goal up. Their total should have been at least three, but goalkeeper Henderson was the original ‘Defiant’. He seemed to be everywhere at once in his own territory. Rangers’ three goals were a lesson to Thistle’s finicky, tee-it-up inside men. Nothing dilatory or sloppy about their execution. Smith first, early in the first half, when he wheeled and hit the ball past Henderson from close up when Johnstone turned in from what seemed inches over the by-line. Smith’s second was his own particular brand. The forceful run through all opposition and a ball screwed in from an apparently ridiculous angle leaving no goalkeeper with a chance. Gillick made no fuss, either, about taking a long upfield delivery in clear position and travelling well in to beat Henderson. ‘Murray’ late goal for Thistle was something similar. Woodburn missed the ball; the centre rounded him and beat Dawson cleverly. Why didn’t he and his fellow-forwards try this sort of thing earlier?
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