The Original 59er

I know there will be lots of photos on here of Canal St Station, however I thought it was worth mentioning that this route went on from Canal St crossed over the main line at Johnstone then went down to Bridge of Weir, Kilmacolm, and on to Port Glasgow and the upper part of Greenock and on to Princes Pier. The line was closed for passenger services from Kilmacolm to Greenock in '59 but the line stayed open until '65. The services from Kilmacolm through Canal St and onwards to Glasgow closed in January '83. Beneath Greenock lies an old line which once ran to the Princes Pier Station at the now Ocean Terminal. It originally ran from St Enoch through Paisley and Kilmacolm however that part of the line closed many years ago. Surprisingly the rails are still in place which is probably as a result of it being used to run freight to the container terminal.

This site really is worth a visit, if you were remotely interested in the Old Renfrew Airport and plane spotting....................... of course I would never have done a nerdy thing like that http://www.dhc-2.com/Renfrew Reflections.html My two greatest memories of Renfrew were both military arrivals: 1. A USAF Starfighter flew in. I think they were a touch difficult to control, however it came in for refuelling with its parachute braking system used as the runway would have been pretty short for it. 2. The second highlight was a the visit of a BAE Lightning. I saw it land and also take off. What was astounding was how it took off fast along the runway then vertical with engines red hot, hell knows how much fuel and tax payer's money alone would go into that manoeuvre!

Whilst I have accepted that we have been at fault in the way that we handled the protocols that theoretically were set out, I also think that we have been treated exceedingly harshly. Jack Ross's interview was a fairly good external view of the position and if I was remotely involved with either Killie or Saints on this issue, I would say appeal and make sure you have good legal advice to back up your arguments. I don't fear additional retribution, that would be vindictive in the extreme, but the SPFL make up their rules as they go along and they wouldn't have done this to the Glasgow twins, Aberdeen or Hibs, so gone on guys, give it your best legal challenge.

I wonder what made you an "idiot lunatic" or just a lunatic? Also you could just be an "idiot" or in the case of John White a school master aged 33 who was just "lunatic", or if he was driven mad by the place where he worked (no school names provided). Times were both cruel and unkind, given that Thomas McGonigle was just "deaf"!

Like many other industrial towns of the time, Paisley had its workhouse. I'm sure life must have been pretty grim inside, but a by-product of an industrial working community.

1959 was a good year to be a Buddy......... In these days you had to have a striped scarf which you never really see that much nowadays, also you had the wooden rattle which I was told at the time came from the days of the 1st World war trenches to warn of a gas attack, but some of them made a real noise.

A really interesting picture online from 1897 which I'm not going to load up onto this page due to copyright issues, but you can view it at: https://www.francisfrith.com/paisley/paisley-the-abbey-1897_39807 I can't ever recall seeing any picture like this before and it really sets out how the building looked before it was altered to today's current architectural form. If you then scroll through the pictures that follow this one, all from the same era, there are some great turn of the century pictures from the same source, all worth seeing.

ok, I somewhat suspect that the chances of having the penalties rescinded are next to zero, but there will be a general feeling of being totally pi**ed off circulating the club, both inside and out. If the Manager ever needed anything to gee the players up and to get them to knuckle down and show the high heid yins what we are made of, then this is the perfect background. So JG, here is one very large excuse to get them going out there and show them all up, tell them it's a great injustice and that we will not be brow beaten!

I posted a way back in a reply to Schull that there would be an almighty f*ck up somewhere along the road, and all it would take is one club to come to grief and the whole season would be a bu**er's muddle. It has all come to pass. Whilst I will accept the reality of the club being negligent, you are not going to tell me that out of all the other clubs in the SPFL they aren't doing the same thing as St Mirren or Kilmarnock, it just so happens they haven't had the covid outbreak hit them (yet) In an ideal world, you go and tell the powers that be that; "they can go f*ck themselves". I know that sounds like throwing the toys out the pram, but no-one said at the outset that breaking rules would make you lose games 3-0. They make it up as they go along that lot. Of course the Old Firm won't ever get hit as they have endless numbers of players they can field to make up the necessary numbers. I'm totally pi**ed off by this pronouncement to the extent that I'm losing interest in everything that is Scottish Football.

What a load of sh*t. I've heard it all now. What happened to Aberdeen and their misdemeanours and would the same have happened to the old firm?........ like hell it would!

ok, for just a moment, whilst it would be perfect to do the double over Aberdeen, and that's not something we do very often, if you had to chose just one win, would you rather have a victory in the League Cup game, or a victory in the League next Saturday?

Where I had my first drink in a pub................. a little bit before my 18th birthday Pint of light was 1/7d, pint of heavy 1/8d, pint of lager 1/10d and pint of export 1/11d. These were the days you could have 4 pints, a fish supper on the way home and still have change out of a 10 bob note!😉

Trams were still going in the 50's but I think they were gone by 1960. The last tram ran in Glasgow in '62.

From what has been written about him, he will make a good contribution. I'm not sure what some folk expect when a player signs for us................. a world class mid-field genius?

That makes it worse!

I suspect that in my formative years he seemed a good player, but with the advantage of age and maybe knowledge, my thoughts on his abilities may have been different. Perhaps it was coloured by the fact that he looked good compared to what was round about him!

I remember going to the park when I was in my teens and there was always a yearly big day at the park. Lots of stalls, boating on the pond and loads of other things - the Oldhall scouts ran a beat the goalie competition and Jim Thorburn was the Goalie!!! It was also a good day for spotting the talent and taking your chances - however I don't see much evidence of that in 1975!

Don't hesitate. The fact that a lot of them will be unpublished makes them all the more valuable - well to this website if no other.

I've got to say that I find it very strange that it has been erected. I thought the only signage on motorways was warning notices etc (I don't consider the "stay alert stay safe save lives" is a warning more an insult to my intelligence! So how are they allowed to erect this sign right on the motorway edge?

It's worth anything being re-posted as 151 pages and rising is bound to have some repetition! I would go for it and accept the usual barbs and laughter from us old yins.🤣

The '68 squad

Jim Clunie came from Aberdeen, if I recall, and he was a very solid centre back. I had never seen the 56/57 photo before, but in the front row you have Bryceland, Lapsley and Wilson and I think I also recognise Walker and Miller, tho' the picture is a bit grainy. The cup-winning squad was really my first introduction to Saints and I went every week that I could right through the 60's and saw that team in the bottom picture around '67. I never really rated Bobby Pinkerton that much, but that was because I liked Jim Blair and Peter Kane. Jim Thorburn the goalie lived not far from me in these days. Cammy Murray was a great servant to the club and he was probably my favourite at the time along with Jim Blair. Willie Renton, was also a very good player and by playing along side him, he brought Andy McFadden along tremendously. I remember in '68 being at the game against Rangers at Love St. It was held in November and it was a cold, still day and Paisley had one of its near Pea-soupers and the game was actually in doubt, but it was played and we managed to beat a Rangers team stacked full of internationalists 1-0. Denis Connaghan was in tremendous form in goals, hence I think the bottom picture has to be '66 or '67. I stood fairly near the centre line and it was difficult to see the goals at each end!

Four photos from the days when I began to take an interest in the B&W jerseys. I'm sure they will have been posted on here a few times, but always good to back to the roots! 😉

That church is something I'm quietly proud of! After closing as a church it went the usual way of being a furniture store / odds and sods salesroom, and slowly but surely it started to really deteriorate as a building. It was a nice Grade 2 listed building, but that made no difference to the owners. Having been dragged up in Paisley, but now working in the big smoke (of Glasgow), I was well aware that grants were available through a government funded body and they would support development of any building if you could show that benefit would come from the investment. I had the idea of creating three floors of flats with an atrium in the middle. The big problem were the long windows on each side of the building, and how would you introduce a floor detail for the middle level of flats. The Paisley Planners weren't at all enthusiastic and basically said we couldn't touch the building, or all we could create were two levels of residential, which didn't financially work. So I asked for Historic Scotland to become involved and one of their people came to Paisley and we turned up at the building with the Paisley Planner in tow. She was fully expecting to be backed up by Historic Scotland, but they backed our idea to the hilt and said that this was one of the best solutions they had seen for a building of this type. So the bottom line was that we carried out the development and I can actually say, I saved the building. The great advantage that it had was no burial ground around it and internally it wasn't too ecclesiastical so not that difficult to get the right look. I hope if any members of the forum live, or has lived here it would be good to hear what they thought of it. I haven't been in the building for a long number of years. The development was completed around 1988.

I'm not proud of this, but I recall having answered Schull on this very topic and I said that all it would need is one team to test positive for two to three weeks and it f**ks up the whole process. The SPFL can't come up with a suggestion now about awarding teams 3-0 wins / losses, as the post above says what happens if say either of the old firm suddenly state that 4 or 5 players are positive and can't play. It's a mess created by the drive to get games back on the park, yet so daft that clubs get minimal financial benefit by playing as no crowds / income from the viewing public is available. Brian Rice called it correctly, you can't decide the league on a basis of awarding 3-0 wins can you imagine the league being decided simply on that basis alone as the team at the top managed to evade, or hide the fact that none of their players tested positive. No, having started, the SPFL must now see this through, one way or another. Saints will just have a massive backlog of games to play and that will probably be very difficult, given the sparse look to our squad.