Kris Doolan the 15-year-old, his face like a battered Mitre peeling apart after being leathered, struggled to see the wisdom in his father’s words. Kris Doolan the 36-year-old made a career out of living by them and is on the verge of bossing a side delivering on them.
Ahead of the first of two play-off final clashes against Ross County that promise to put Partick Thistle fans through the wringer after five years out of the top flight. For the man in the dugout, though, these last three weeks border on inconceivable, losing his dad Lawrence, 71, on the eve of their quarter-final second leg.
Even as his health deteriorated, his desire to talk all things Thistle did not. Doolan said: “He’ll be really proud. I spoke to him after the Queen’s Park first leg, I went to see him and he was really poorly, he was close to passing away. The last thing he told us is he was proud of us, basically well done. He’d been watching the game on TV, he was trying to chat as best he could about football, how he was chuffed about Partick Thistle.
“He loved Thistle. My dad followed us for nearly 11 years to every game, my wife, my kids, we’ve been all over the country, we’ve been at all the grounds. He wanted us to do well as much as I do, we’re both fans of the club, so I guarantee he’ll be watching.
"He’ll be shining over us. Yes, there have been sad times and there have been horrible times but ultimately now I can think he’s proud of what we’re achieving, he’ll be happy with what we’re achieving and what we’re about to achieve, hopefully.
“And he’ll be supporting us as much as me. As much as we love, I love, watching us score goals, he loved it because he watched me do it as well.
“But I know even when he was seriously ill, the one thing still on the telly was Partick Thistle. For somebody who couldn’t get themselves up and couldn’t move – he was in a lot of pain and in a real bad way – the last thing he wanted to do was talk about Partick Thistle.
“For me that says it all. One he was watching and two he wanted to talk about it at the very last kick.”
The former Auchinleck Talbot frontman played under many gaffers in sides laden with talent but the advice of the man who knew him best has guided him and this team. Doolan said: “I was only 15. I went to play junior football, left Kilmarnock, signed for Kello Rovers and we played Craigmark in the cup.
"I wasn’t supposed to be playing but the team was named and I was starting. Anyway I was playing up front, went for a challenge with a guy in his 30s.
“He just ducked, I fell over the top of him, landed on my back. He lifted his foot, I was facing up, and he stamped down on my face. I turned my head at the last second – he could have taken my eye out.
“He dragged his studs off my face. Like a ‘welcome to junior football’ – I’m pretty sure that’s what he said. So it ripped my eye open and I remember sitting up, ‘Play on’.
“My face was gushing, my eye was gushing and I looked at my dad. My dad had played for Talbot, the same way I did, and he was leaning against the barrier, not even flustered.
“I said to him, ‘What’s that?’ and he said, ‘Well fix it, don’t be there’. I was saying, ‘Whit you talking about?’. He said, ‘Well, why would you go get physical with him, he’s too big, when the tackles come in, don’t be there, get it and move it quicker... take physicality out it, otherwise that’s what happens to you’.
“Right OK, I get it, I move the ball quicker, I don’t go and get physical with guys I can’t win against. That was the best and the strangest bit of advice I had. But when I thought about it and I started to develop it, when I came into professional football, it makes so much sense.”
His mother didn’t exactly agree. “She was saying, ‘Awww my wean’ because my eye was hanging out,” laughed Doolan, albeit the straight to the point sentiment was “one of the turning points” for him.
He said: “That’s what we do as a team, take the ball, look after it and take physicality away from the other team because if that’s all you’ve got, we’ve got more. We’ve got physicality as well, we can mix it up if we need to. But ultimately, if we’ve got the ball and move it quickly enough, it takes physicality out of it.”
However, this promotion pursuit is not a tale of just one family. Doolan said: “I’d love to see the club go back up simply because I know the joy it would bring to so many people, let alone my dad. He’d be doing cartwheels. Everybody would be happy.”
Not least his kids – Darcie, 8, Halle, 4, and seven-month old Jax. Their old man’s name may be sparking fans’ songs but he said: “They think it’s theirs! They love the whole atmosphere. It’s a family club and when I speak to my children is when it hits home.”
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