Aberdeen v Partick Thistle | Head to head
Friday night’s match will be the 190th meeting between the two clubs. It’s a fixture that stretches back 110 years. The full record is shown in the table.
The first meetings between the clubs came in 1905/06 with the Jags winning the first match 1-0 at Pittodrie and Aberdeen winning the return fixture 2-1 in Glasgow.
The Dons’ record win against Partick came on a cold Tuesday night at Firhill. The league match had been abandoned on the Saturday with the Dons well on top as the ground staff struggled to clear the pitch of snow at the interval. In the rearranged match, Duncan Shearer helped himself to a hat-trick as Aberdeen strolled to a 7-0 win.
It was the second time the Dons had hit the Jags for seven, following on from a 7-2 Pittodrie win back in 1971. That afternoon it was Joe Harper who was helping himself to a hat-trick. The Jags’ biggest win against Aberdeen was also a 7-0 thrashing. That came back in November 1927 at Firhill. The biggest scoring matches were the 7-2 win for Aberdeen mentioned above and also a 6-3 win for Thistle back in January 1954.
Probably the most important match the two sides have played was the semi-final of the Scottish Cup in season 1977/78.
Curiously, this was the third meeting of the two teams in nine days.
The previous two matches had been league fixtures with Aberdeen winning the first 2-1 at Pittodrie thanks to a double from Harper. The second match was at Firhill and Harper was on target again in a 2-0 victory, so confidence was high going into this Hampden encounter.
A double from Ian Fleming gave the Dons a 2-0 interval lead and everything was going to plan until Melrose pulled one back after the break with a spectacular overhead kick. Nerves started to show in the Dons ranks until Harper calmed things down with a penalty in the 71st minute. Fleming completed his hat-trick six minutes later and although Melrose claimed a second two minutes from time, it was a comfortable 4-2 win that saw Aberdeen through to a cup final meeting with Rangers.
Joe Harper is the Dons’ top scorer against Partick Thistle with 14 goals. Right behind him is Benny Yorston with 11 and Harry Yorston with 10 while Duncan Shearer and Matt Armstrong both have 9. From the current squad, both Adam Rooney and Niall McGinn have three each and a special mention goes to Russell Anderson who also managed three goals against the Jags during his career.
the stats
