Wilson only got 10 minutes at one summit but is loving helping Jags peak after 'real hard' start

MARK WILSON had barely reached the summit before he was being ushered back down in double-quick time.

- BY ALAN ROBERTSON

He's recounting climbing Mount Kilimanjaro but it's hard not to draw parallels with football management as he stares out over the Firhill turf.

Nine games in at Partick Thistle, he's only at base camp and yet has covered a lot of ground.

While he and partner Lee-Ann were raising money for Cash for Kids last summer, this one could hardly be considered a stroll.

Parachuted in to interview after Brian Graham passed on the job... losing stalwarts such as Stuart Bannigan... his sporting director being hospitalised in Mauritius... an operating budget finalised up to four months later than it ideally should have.

It's as if items were being stockpiled in his five years out of management waiting for his return.

"That's how this challenge is a piece of p**s... Kilimanjaro is way harder!" laughed Wilson.

"You reach the summit and get 10 minutes in case you die! I said, 'I need a rest' but the guy who took us up said, 'I need to get you down, let's go."

Plenty, it could be argued, were guilty of overlooking the 41-year-old - in the youth setup since 2023 - such was the fascination with what the future looked like for his fellow former interim boss.

He isn't the first and won't be the last appointee met with a lukewarm reception but what fans have been treated to, with just one defeat and a League Cup quarters spot, has been anything but.

"I'm well aware of my surroundings, I understood the feeling around the place when I got appointed," said Wilson. "People would have thought it was a lazy one, unambitious, would look at my history, 'Oh, if he couldn't survive at Brechin, what chance has he got at Partick Thistle?'

"You need to take all that on the chin. Not at all (does it bother me)"

Looking over to the John Lambie Stand, he added: "If I was sitting in that stand I'd be the exact same. We all tend to find negatives in whoever at teams rather than positives.