Happy New year to everyone from all at Bathgate Thistle Community Football Club!

It’s been a massive year for all at the club and there are many things to look back on with a sense of achievement. There have been some real highlights during the year including but not limited to becoming a constituted club, the establishment of a club executive committee and all topped off by being awarded the SFA QM a massive boost for the club.

The executive have been busy and shortly the first publication of our 5 year development plan will take place shortly. This document will shape our aims and challenges over the next few years and we aim to work as hard as possible to make sure that we benefit the game of football in Bathgate. 

Towards the end of January we will be publishing our first Community Club newsletter. In this we will aim to bring you the very latest from the executive and also some news from some of the teams within the Community Club.

We are also aiming to bring more teams online to the website and we will soon be asking for volunteers from teams to submit news items and match reports directly onto the website.

Our Sections

It’s been a huge year for the Juniors too with a new management team and squad in place. The team are doing us all proud and sit 2nd in the McBookies East Premier League, a remarkable start considering the wholesale changes that took place. We wish them every bit of luck in their push for promotion. Keep an eye out for their fixture and get yourself along to a home match at the Creamery, they are an exciting team to watch!

Our Amateur sides continue to fly the flag for Thistle as the Saturday’s are going strong in the Premier 2 in the LEAFA league and have a decent chance at a shot at the title whilst the Sunday’s have recently gone through some re-structuring and have adopted the amateur constitution.  A strong second half to the season will see them challenging for the league.

Our youth sides continue to impress with our under 16’s in particular looking strong in their league whilst the under 13’s have had some cracking results as they find their feet in their first season at 11s.

Our other age groups including our Soccer 7’s, Soccer 4’s and Soccer Schools grow from strength to strength as the numbers swell as more and more kids look to join our setup. So much so that one of our top priorities for the next couple of months will be to grow our coaching staff to cater for the new numbers. Look out for some information on that one very soon.

One of the highlights of 2013 has been the setup of a Girl’s section and 2014 will see huge push to get the section up and running. The demand so far look promising and we look forward to seeing the section grow.

So we have made huge strides in the last year and 2014 looks like being a year where we can continue to grow and work together and help shape the future of football in Bathgate for many years to come.