Partick Thistle Football Club

Yesterday we brought you the news here on www.ptfc.co.uk that both Stuart Bannigan and Ryan Scully had signed new contracts at the Club with manager Ian McCall providing us with a little insight into the thinking behind the offer of the new contracts. But what of the two young lads themselves? www.ptfc.co.uk caught with the two players just after they had both featured in Monday night’s 3-0 reserve win over Queen’s Park.

Ryan Scully hasn’t, yet, made his first team debut for the Club but he has sat on the bench as a substitute goalkeeper on a number of occasions. A first team debut for the player, who started his career at Firhill with the under 17s, is surely not too far away.

The offer of a new, extended contract, however, took the young keeper a little by surprise.

“I didn’t know too much about it until the gaffer took me to one side before the game against Dunfermline. I didn’t take me too long to agree to it though and I’m absolutely delighted.”

“One thing that the manager said to me was that it is really just the start of things for me but it is good to know that I have a future at the Club beyond the end of this season.”

“I’ve picked up a lot from working with Craig Hinchcliffe and while he was at Firhill, Jonny Tuffey. Hinchy in particular has been a big influence. When I started at the Club I wasn’t doing too well and my head went down but Hinchy was there to boost my confidence, to get to me to keeping going and also to stay on after training to work on things.”

“Ultimately my ambition is to play first team football but right now I’m happy enough to be playing reserve team football. I’m still young enough to be picking up experience from playing in reserve matches.”

To cap an important few days for Ryan he kept a clean sheet in the aforementioned reserve match a fact that he was clearly delighted about.

“That was my first clean sheet of the season and I’m ecstatic about that.”

Of the two players it is Stuart Bannigan that has the greater first team experience, following up his debut as a sub against Clyde with starts against both Ayr United and Stirling Albion.

Stuart has been at Firhill since the age of 15 and has progressed through the youth ranks at Firhill developing into a midfield player rich in promise.

Like Ryan though the news that a new contract was on the table for him to sign took Stuart a little by surprise.

“I didn’t expect it at all. The manager spoke to me on Saturday morning about it and I’m delighted to have been given a new two and a half year deal.”

“It’s been a good few months for me after making my first team debut and this is another important step in my development as a player. Right now I’m happy to be playing for the reserves and under 19s, and there is plenty of football at the moment, and obviously if I get another chance in the first team I would be delighted about that as it would be good to get some more games under my belt at that level.”

“I’ve been happy with the way my development has been going but I realise that I still have a lot of work to do especially strength wise. I know that I can get the ball down and pass it but I need to get stronger as well so I can cope with games a bit longer.”

Ryan and Stuart are far from the only good prospects on the Club’s books at the moment and a reserve team on Monday that included no fewer than 9 teenagers in it is evidence of that fact. To round things off Stuart was quick to praise the performance in that game of others that we could wee be seeing round Firhill for many a year to come.

“Kyle Lochhead and Jamie Campbell both played really well on Monday night and at the back I thought that Colin Stevenson was excellent as well. I thought that as a team we passed the ball really well and in fact we passed them off the park at times.”