sport news Patrick chairman Jacqui Low is defiant on shares decision amid battle for ... trends now

It was a revolution that started with a single, devastating death. It has subsequently been fractious and divisive. It has resembled a battle for the soul of Partick Thistle. But Jacqui Low remains serene at the heart of the battle.

It seems all over, bar the shouting, though there might be more of that.

The Thistle chairman oversaw the transfer of shares to the Partick Thistle Trust this week. This announcement did not signal a ceasefire for some fans.

A supporters’ group, The Jags Foundation, claimed the awarding of the shares to the Partick Thistle Football Club Trust had been ‘designed to marginalise rather than empower fans’. The row rumbles on but Low believes she has fulfilled her mission.

The 55-per-cent stake in the Firhill club was transferred by Three Black Cats (3BC), the vehicle set up to pass on the majority shareholding from the late Euromillions winner Colin Weir. The trust now owns almost 75 per cent of shares.

These prosaic details give no hint of the conflict that has raged throughout the process.

‘This is what he wanted. I am in no doubt,’ Low says of Weir, who died in December 2019, aged 71. ‘If I had to justify this to Colin today, he would be happy with the decision to give the majority shareholding to the Trust.’

This is said calmly in an exclusive interview where she answered all questions and sought to banish the explosive language of ‘financial black holes’ and ‘secret talks’.

‘The club did not need to be saved,’ she says, citing audited figures that will soon show its robust financial health. ‘Three Black Cats is a private company. It had its obligations to Colin Weir to fulfil. That was its objective. It needed to do what it needed to do without sharing every move with the rest of the world.’

The story is one of a possible threat to the future of the club, an untimely death and then the wrangling over the future of fan ownership.

The threat was identified in 2018 when there was an approach to the Thistle board to buy a majority shareholding.

‘I looked at it and, along with the rest of the board, declined to authorise the sale of shares if asked,’ said Low. ‘I do not know if we even got to that point.

‘Unfortunately, the then majority shareholders thought it was right for the club and removed us (the board). I sat out for four months. I went to games home and away. I paid for my tickets.’

The deal then seemed to flounder. ‘Then we heard a rumour that the club was being touted in the Middle East. I don’t know if that was true. But it was enough for Three Black Cats (set up to enable Weir’s dream of a Thistle academy) to discuss whether there was an opportunity to buy the majority shareholding.

‘Colin’s concern was that he did not want the club to fall into third-party hands. If that happened, then the future of the club was not guaranteed. For him, he believed the fans, who loved the club, would never let that happen.’

The shareholding was bought by Weir, who won £161million in 2011, and a strategy set up for fan involvement in the club.

‘Then out of the blue, Colin died,’ says Low. She had known the benefactor for ten years and become close to him. ‘Frankly, I was shocked at the speed it happened.’

She was also aware of the task he had bequeathed her. She was party to talks with lawyers over his plans for the shares long before his death and was shown the relevant passages in his will before he died. She discussed them with Weir. ‘Colin laid out exactly what he wanted.’

There was laughter in those moments, with Low believing she had been saddled with something to do in her old age. The tragic events of December 2019 proved otherwise.

‘It has been the longest three years of my life,’ she says. ‘It has had every emotion known across a range of people and entities. If you asked three years ago what was

read more from dailymail.....