Well-known football fan

Born: January 18, 1929;

Died: September 20, 2017

JANET Hopkins nee Erskine, who has died at the age of 88, was a former bank worker in Cowglen in Glasgow but she was best known as a lifelong Partick Thistle and Scotland fan. She became a fond fixture in the hospitality suite at Firhill and was a weel-kent figure in her tartan regalia at Hampden and on supporters' buses heading all over Europe. With with husband, she was also a founding member of The West of Scotland Tartan Army.

Born into a family of Thistle die-hards, Janet Hopkins's mother washed the team shirts and during the Second World War the legendary Bill Shankly was a house guest. Alan Rough and Alan Hansen were also family friends, although the same could not be said of Bertie Auld the manager at the time. From her regular position behind the dugout, Janet called on the constabulary to stop the continual bad language emanating from Mr Auld.

As a child, it was Janet’s father who helped developed her love for football. He took her to every Scotland Home International and she witnessed disasters, stramashes and victories in London, Cardiff and Belfast.

When she married Sam Hopkins in 1967, it was fitting that their honeymoon was the England vs Scotland match in which a 3-2 victory gained our national team the temporary title of world champions.

Mrs Hopkins's proud boast was that she had attended four World Cups and two European championships, a feat which only a few Scottish football fans have achieved. The West Germany 1974 tournament was a preface to the modern tartan army in turning its attention away from home shores to foreign adventures and Sam and Janet Hopkins were right in the heart of it. They toured the continent by plane and by coach, and were founder members of the Partick Thistle International Scotland Supporters Club and then The West of Scotland Tartan Army.

Mrs Hopkins was also a member of the short-lived breakaway Summerston Young Farmers Supporters Club, which was formed to travel by bus to the Dublin 1987 Euro Qualifiers. The chairman Jim Brown insisted they dress up as farmers to beat the travel ban on the Irish ferry, Mrs Hopkins supplying the straw and farming magazines to fool the authorities.

Away from football, Mrs Hopkins had a career in the National Savings Bank at Cowglen where her office was famous for its liquid lunches.

She was a quietly determined lady and was working as a polling booth officer in Cardonald when candidate Tommy Sheridan made the fatal mistake of asking Janet “do you know who I am?” When he left the building he knew exactly who Janet Hopkins was. She loved to tell this story.

It is as a Harry Wraggs and Scotland fan that Janet Hopkins will be remembered. There are more stories about her Tartan Army trips - of course there are, but her motto was "what goes on tour, stays on tour".

HAMISH HUSBAND