We take so much for granted. Fail to appreciate the things that make Scottish football so unique. And aren't often blessed with the greatest gift of all, as none other than Robert Burns described it - an ability to see ourselves as other see us.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to remind us. A woman who grew up in small mountain town in the USA but has thrown her heart and soul into not only following Partick Thistle to Dingwall and beyond. But investing in a game that is too often undervalued by those charged with selling it.
Rebecca Hansen is just that person. She arrived in Scotland in 2018, searching for a UK base for her business – initially a software development company promoting electric cars but one which very quickly would become Wyre, a company that sells them.
Having baulked at the prices in London she admits that it was almost on a whim that she journeyed north.
“My great grandfather happened to be from Scotland, I had never been so I’d claim it’s a business trip but it was mainly a vacation,’ Hansen admits. ‘Like a lot of Americans my perception of Glasgow was that it was probably a great place but it had a reputation.
“So I came here, and thought, you know what this city is actually quite lovely. I looked around at opening an office in Edinburgh, up towards the castle, in Aberdeen and Inverness and of all the cities I was looking at I liked Glasgow.”
Her business soon had its UK base. About a year in, this avid sports fan decided to take in games at both at Ibrox and Celtic Park, recognising the pull of both clubs when it came to promoting the Wyre name - but also a dawning realisation.
“I thought it would be good to get in front of these people, it would be good for brand recognition but then I started thinking about it and if you sponsor one of those two squads you risk the other half of the city hating you and I didn’t want half the city of Glasgow to hate me.
“I hadn’t really explored it a great deal but I looked at Partick Thistle and went to one of the matches there and I thought this is lovely, very family orientated, certainly not the number of fans you get at Ibrox or Celtic Park, but they are equally passionate.
“I just warmed to the club and looked at how I could get involved and they showed me some of the things you could do. You could name the stadium and I thought that would be pretty awesome to do.
“To be fair, the main reason I ended up doing that was Americans do not differentiate between Premiership and Championship and they don’t differentiate between the English version of football and the Scottish version. So, they hear that I’m sponsoring a stadium for a Championship team in Scotland, they don’t know that’s not Man City, other than they think if you sponsor a stadium you’re obviously a gigantic firm.
“It's helped a tremendous amount with our US investors. People who would maybe not give us a second-look say, ‘Oh your name is on a football stadium, you’re obviously the size of an AT&T’ because they are familiar with people sponsoring NFL stadiums that cost 100 million quid to sponsor.”
After falling in love with Glasgow, Hansen found herself falling in love with Thistle – now playing at The Wyre Stadium At Firhill – to give it it’s full title.
“I got to just love the club. I go to every game when I’m here. I spend half my time in the UK half in the US, but I try to go to every match. I certainly go to every home match and I go to most of the away games.
“It’s just outstanding. I love the environment. Americans will say how boring football is because they’ve actually never watched a game. You can watch an NFL football game and I’ll give you this it’s exciting for the three seconds they are actually doing something. But there is nothing more exciting than when someone scores a goal. It’s exciting because they don’t happen every five minutes. And you don’t know when they’re going to happen. If you weren’t paying attention, you just missed the most exciting thing of a match.
“I just love the sport, I’ve never been so on the edge of my seat than when watching a proper football game.
“I am a Thistle fan. I love the squad, I love the team. And I do love they have fans who are very passionate. But the other thing I’ve noticed is that I can be in a cab or a pub and it’s clear everybody in the city has a soft spot for Partick Thistle.
“They might be a Rangers or Celtic fan but Partick Thistle is like their little brother. I think it is awesome. I just think it is what Glasgow is all about.”
Her love for the club extends to that agonising, heart-breaking day in Dingwall when she travelled north for the play-off final in 2023 only to see Thistle snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
“It was in the bag. I have never been more devastated by a sporting event than at the end of that match. I specifically did not come back to the UK this year until after the play-offs because I did not want to risk going through that again.
“I did not cry … but I thought I was going to die.”
Relationships are now being built with other clubs – Dumbarton, Falkirk, others in the Premiership. And, even though the scars may still not have healed, Ross County.
“We’re not naming stadiums all over the country, not that I would be opposed to that!” Hansen says.
“Football is a very large part of everyone’s life in Scotland, more so than even in England, people are passionate about their club. People are passionate about the sport. I got a notification from our employment law supplier who pointed out that when the Euros are on people are going to take time off and you need to deal with it. I was laughing about that. I can’t imagine that coming out from one of our similar suppliers in the US.
“That’s an indication how passionate and how ingrained it is in the culture.
“It was a surprise, a learning experience. I did not expect that. I’ve met passionate American football fans but they don’t compare to the passion they have to football in Scotland. Even if I’m in Green Bay Wisconsin, they’re cheering for the Packers, they’ve done it for three generations. Partick Thistle was born in 1876, there is not a sports team in the US that is anywhere close to that old.
“Just the whole history and everything is amazing.
“We did get feedback when we first renamed the stadium. We put the name up there, we think it’s all groovy but the fans are still going to call it Firhill. That’s fine. I call it Wyre Stadium at Firhill and I did that for a reason because I don’t think it would be cool just to change the name of the stadium … it is what the fans are about.
“Our actual official colours are blue and white but all our branding at the stadium is Partick Thistle colours. And we did that for a reason because we did not want to essentially kick a bunch of passionate supporters. We want them on board, we want to be part of this passionate society not some kind of interloper.
“I would like fans to use the name but I don’t expect them to. We’ve had our name up there for a year - if it’s up there for 20 maybe they will. It’s a three-year deal. I’ve told them I’m interested in renewing and extending it to five. I have no reason not to keep extending it.”
It’s a long way from the small mining town in the Nevada mountains where Hansen, who would go on to gain not one but two degrees from the acclaimed Berkeley University, grew up.
Perhaps there is little surprise that her Wyre business is involved in the green revolution given that from an early age she admits to being a passionate environmentalist.
“When I was little, a small child like six or seven, I insisted that we recycle beverage cans. I grew up in a mining town in a pretty rough part of western US and that was just unheard of.
“Because of the culture I grew up in, and the kind of industry my father was associated with, environmentalism was not the thing. At the time I think everyone liked having clean water, everyone liked having clean air, we lived in small towns, we lived up in the mountains so that was something you took for granted.
“Even when I went to university, and Berkeley is one of the most liberal campuses on the planet, I just never thought of myself that way. I guess when I look in the mirror, how can I say I’m not an environmentalist when I’m saying stop burning the world to the ground.”
The Wyre model is simple. If you want an electric car they’ll get it for you - and by using the HMRC Salary Sacrifice scheme they’ll get it for you at a good price – removing the one main hurdle that stops people from going electric … the cost.
Are clubs receptive? Could they be doing more to embrace the green agenda?
“Everybody could be greener. There’s a lot of things everybody could do that they don’t. When push comes to shove there are some big sacrifices that have to be made to fight the climate emergency.
“They have been receptive - we don’t give the cars away they’re paying for them on a salary sacrifice scheme which they didn’t know about. We do spend a lot of time explaining the nuances of a tax scheme to individuals and how this is going to get a car for essentially half price. Like I said with my relationship of being an environmentalist I think everybody we talk to, they want to do the right thing, they want to be green.
“Every club could to do a little better. The problem is dealing with reality. People are going to drive cars no matter what. I know they have to exist so let’s at least do the best we can and reduce and minimise the impact on the environment.
“We can only strive for perfection - we’re not going to get there any time soon.”
