Glasgow City vs Partick Thistle: A Football TravelHER Weekend North of the Border

This weekend, we decided to head north of the border to see featured club Glasgow City in their SWPL fixture against local rivals Partick Thistle.

Train travel, hotel stay and match ticket — the standard Football TravelHER offering. Simple enough, right?

Well… not quite.

TRAIN CANCELLED!

We arrived at York station nice and early, ready for the first train of the trip, only to receive a message from Heather:

“TRAIN CANCELLED!”

Strong start. Especially considering this was only the first train of the trip.

A quick Google search to establish exactly what our rights were when a train operator cancels your service, followed by an extra hour hanging around York station, obviously resulted in the only sensible decision…

A pre-trip business meeting over a beer at The York Tap.

Business is business.

Thankfully, the next train ran to schedule and we eventually headed north, arriving in Preston for a short layover before continuing through the Lake District and onwards towards Scotland.

As the day moved into golden hour, the scenery was absolutely beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that it frequently managed to distract us from the live stream of Arsenal vs Manchester United in the WSL that we had playing at the same time.

Multitasking at its finest.

We arrived into Glasgow at around 8pm — a little later than planned — and it turns out they really aren’t exaggerating when they talk about Glasgow’s bar scene.

The city was absolutely buzzing.

Walking towards the hotel, we passed live music, packed pubs, 90s dance music in full swing and theatre shows. There was a brilliant energy around the city and it immediately felt like we’d made the right choice for a Football TravelHER weekend.

Where we stayed: Holiday Inn Theatreland

Our base for the weekend was Holiday Inn Theatreland, which proved to be a really convenient option.

It’s around a 5–10 minute walk from Glasgow Central Station, while being slightly tucked away from the main strip — close enough to everything without being right in the middle of the noise.

The rooms were modern and comfortable, with soundproof windows and air conditioning, while the hotel also has an Italian restaurant attached, a 24-hour reception and, importantly for a football weekend, baggage storage.

That last one is particularly useful when you’ve got a match to attend and don’t want to be dragging your bags around the city afterwards.

With an early start planned, we headed to bed.

Because we’re old AF now.

Orange was definitely the colour

Sunday morning arrived and we got ourselves kitted up for matchday.

Orange was the colour, so naturally we had to represent Glasgow City x Foudys, complete with the essential support crew of Irn-Bru.

If you’re going to do a football weekend, you may as well commit to the theme.

Before heading out to explore, we needed breakfast — and this is where we made a slightly unexpected choice.

Dishoom

Yes, we were in Glasgow.

Yes, we chose an Indian breakfast.

And yes, we’d absolutely recommend it.

Dishoom offers a huge selection of hot and cold dishes, with free-refill chai and filter coffee. Heather stayed firmly on theme with a haggis-based dish, which came highly recommended.

The place had a steady flow of people throughout our visit and was clearly popular, so it definitely felt like we’d stumbled across a Glasgow breakfast institution.

By the time we’d finished, we were full to the brim with chai and ready to explore.

Exploring Glasgow

Our first major mistake?

Heading north of the border in late September and apparently deciding that sunglasses weren’t necessary.

As we reached George Square, the sun came out and we were temporarily blinded.

Not our finest piece of trip planning.

George Square is currently undergoing reconstruction, but once complete it looks set to be a lovely place to sit outside a restaurant or bar, enjoy a drink and indulge in some serious people watching.

One thing that definitely didn’t disappoint, though, was the famous Scottish tradition of statue coning.

There were multiple statues sporting traffic cones during our walk around the city — and we have to say, the Scots have absolutely perfected the art.

We continued wandering around Glasgow, taking in the coffee shops, pubs and bars along the way.

One slightly random observation was how much some of the city’s streets reminded us of New York.

Which, conveniently, answered a question we’d previously had about why the latest Spider-Man movie was filmed on location in Glasgow.

Movie geek trivia for you there.

After walking off at least one of our many chai refills, it was time to head to the main event.

Glasgow City vs Partick Thistle

We jumped in an Uber and headed to Petershill Park for Glasgow City vs Partick Thistle.

And this is where the Football TravelHER weekend really came together.

Arrival was easy, with a straightforward turnstile entrance, a warm welcome and a free programme waiting for us.

The stadium itself has a single main stand holding several hundred spectators, while a pop-up club shop had plenty of Glasgow City merchandise available.

There was also a food kiosk, a matchday announcer keeping everyone updated with the line-ups and activities, and — importantly — a banging soundtrack keeping the atmosphere going.

Glasgow City are known for having one of the best matchday atmospheres in the SWPL.

And it lived up to expectations.

The Game

Partick Thistle opened the scoring from a corner, with the ball making its way through several Glasgow players before being tapped in at the far post.

Glasgow City responded before half-time to level the game at 1–1, setting up an interesting second half.

And that’s where Glasgow really stepped up.

They raised their performance after the break and added another three goals, eventually running out 4–1 winners.

The final goal was particularly memorable.

New signing Yuuka Kurosaki scored less than ten minutes into her debut, producing a fantastic volley from a cross to loud applause from the Glasgow City fans.

Not a bad way to introduce yourself.

Back into Glasgow

Once the final whistle went, we grabbed another Uber.

It was available within around five minutes, although for anyone wanting to get their steps in, it’s apparently around a 40-minute downhill walk back towards the city centre.

Our Uber driver was a little stressed when he arrived, having just transported a previous customer who was suffering severe kidney pains and had been unable to get an ambulance.

Thankfully, we were a considerably less stressful fare.

We headed back into the city, collected our bags from the hotel storage and had just enough time for one final drink before heading back to the station for the journey home to Yorkshire.

The Football TravelHER Verdict

Overall, this was a fantastic matchday experience from start to finish.

Glasgow City absolutely lived up to the expectations we’d had before travelling.

There’s something for everyone — a friendly welcome, a proper matchday atmosphere, plenty of merchandise, food and drink options, accessible transport and, most importantly, some great football on show.

It’s exactly the kind of weekend Football TravelHER is all about: combining the football with the destination and making a proper trip out of it.

And a massive thank you to Laura and Chris for catching up with us at half-time.

We absolutely love what you guys have built at Glasgow City and it was brilliant to experience it first-hand.

Until the next one…

Football TravelHER ⚽✈️