Partick Thistle Football Club

Football at times can be a very cruel sport with today's game with Inverness providing a perfect example of that fact.

A hard working performance looked set to bring a point back to Glasgow only for a late, highly contentious, refereeing decision to rob Thistle of that point.

When www.ptfc.co.uk caught up with Ian McCall after the game the manager was in no mood to pull his punches with regard to that decision.

"That was an awful decision. The way that the ball has travelled should mean that common sense alone tells the referee that Ian Maxwell has won the ball and that it isn't a foul. I'm not sure as to where the challenge took place but the simple thing is that it wasn't a foul. It's extra harsh on Ian Maxwell as well. He will now miss our next game with Ayr United because of the red card he picked up. What happens if we keep a clean sheet in that game? Ian could lose his place in the team through no fault of his own."

"As disappointed we were with the decision to give Inverness a penalty the thing that is really concerning us at this moment is the conduct of the assistant referee, He has sworn at my players and I find that totally unacceptable behaviour. To make matter worse he is now denying that he did so yet I have 8 players who are adamant that he did. I don't like criticising match officials, it's something that I try to avoid doing but they need to realise that football is an emotional thing for players and managers. It's our living that we are talking about. I'm not sure if there is anything formally we as a Club can do but I will discuss the situation with the Chairman at the start of the week with a view to launching a complaint."

"Returning to the game I have to say that I am very proud of my players. The players and the management came in for some criticism after the Dunfermline game last week but what we saw today was a group of players who take a real pride in playing for Partick Thistle. We were up against Inverness today while without 7 or 8 players but I couldn't have asked more from those players that were available."

"In many ways today's game sums up our season. Although Inverness were the better side in the second half, with Jonny Tuffey in excellent form, I thought that we could have been two or three goals ahead by half-time. Four times, for example, the ball has fallen to Chris Erskine in and around the box. Twice his shot has simply hit off an Inverness defender, once it has stuck one of our players and the other time he hit the bar. That's just the way things seem to be going for us at the moment."