Ian McCall
Born on September 30th 1964 in Dumfries Ian embarked on a career in Senior Football in Scotland with Queen's Park in 1983 making the step up from Bellevue Amateurs.
Queen's Park would be the first of 10 teams that Ian would ply his trade with in his playing career. He left Queen's Park in 1986 to join Dunfermline where his form drew him to the attention of Rangers. After a couple of years at Ibrox Ian was on the move again this time to England when he joined Bradford City who paid a reported £200,000 for his services. He subsequently returned to Scotland when he joined Dunfermline for a second time.
Ian spent part of the 1996-97 season here at Firhill. He made his first appearance in a Thistle jersey as a substitute during the course of a 3-0 Firhill win against Falkirk on October 26th 1996. In total Ian made 7 appearances as a Partick Thistle player all but one of them, a 3-1 win at East Fife, coming via the substitute bench.
After leaving Firhill Ian signed for Clydebank and it was while at Clydebank that Ian first dipped his toes into the treacherous waters of football management. Managing Clydebank at stage in their history was no easy task either. The Club had upped sticks from Clydebank and were sharing the then less than salubrious surroundings of Morton's Cappielow Park. Ian though tackled his first managerial job with some relish and, given the parlous financial situation at Clydebank and plans to relocate the Club to Dublin, with more than a modicum of success.
In January 2000 McCall changed Clubs but not home grounds when he took over the reigns of Morton. He was in charge at Cappielow for the remainder of the 1999-2000 season and was in charge for 17 games.
After a spell out of the game returned as manager of Airdrieonians in March 2001. Airdrieonians' problems at this stage were well documented and just a few months in the job Ian's was faced with the not inconsiderable task of putting together a squad ahead of the 2001-02 season something that he did with no little success. The side that McCall managed to cobble together would finish the season ahead of every team bar one - Partick Thistle. Although Thistle would win the First Division in four meetings with Airdrieonians they were unable to record even a single win.
At the end of that season Airdrieonians ceased to be but Ian's work there had not gone unnoticed and he was appointed as manager of Falkirk in May 2002. Ironically Falkirk would have been relegated had it not been for the demise of Airdrieonians. Even allowing for that reprieve a major restructuring job required to be done at Falkirk and again McCall attacked the job in hand with tremendous enthusiasm. The turn around in Falkirk's fortunes was remarkable and by the end of January 2003 they had knocked out SPL Hearts from the Scottish Cup and were well on the road to winning the First Division Championship.
McCall's record at Airdrieonians and Falkirk served only to enhance his reputation as a manager rich in potential. It was hardly a surprise that he again came to the attention of others and he was eventually lured away from Brockville to manage for the first time, though we dearly hope not the last time, in the SPL when he took up the vacancy at Dundee United in January 2003.
In McCall's first full season in charge at Tannadice he led United to a top six finish. The line between success and failure in football though is a very fine one and when United didn't enjoy as successful a campaign the following season McCall paid for that with his job.
In November 2005 Ian returned to football management when he became manager of his home town club Queen of the South. McCall inherited what most people considered to be a relegation bound squad at Palmerston but Queens enjoyed an excellent second half to the season and managed to climb out of the bottom two to secure First Division football for another season.
It was a similar story for Queen of the Sou th last season. Cut off at the bottom at one stage Queens again staged a remarkable comeback in the latter half of the season and once again avoided the dropped recording their longest unbeaten run for 20 years in the process.
McCall though saw his future lying elsewhere and it was with great delight that Partick Thistle announced on Friday May 25th 2007 that Ian had agreed to be manager of Partick Thistle Football Club.
In the summer of 2009 Ian signed a new three year contract at Firhill.
