It's high time for Caley curse to end, says Raith Rovers goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald

Rovers and Thistle have already met once this season and that game at the former’s Stark’s Park home ground in Kirkcaldy at the start of September went the way of the Highlanders by 2-0, thanks to a 61st-minute Scott Allardice penalty and another goal from Billy McKay just ahead of the final whistle.

That defeat extended the Fifers’ winless run against Thistle in the league, dubbed the Caley curse by fans, to just short of 22 years.

Their last league win against Thistle, in the old first division, was away in October 2000, with Jay Stein and Ivan Mballa scoring for Rovers and Paul Sheerin replying for their hosts.

Since then, they’ve met 22 times on league duty, with Thistle winning 17 of those matches and the other five being drawn, so it’s about time the Fifers got that monkey off their back and moved on, according to former Heart of Midlothian and Kilmarnock stopper MacDonald, at Raith since July 2020.

“There’s no time like the present, is there?” said the 36-year-old, between the posts for Raith’s last eight league games versus Thistle.

“Since I’ve been here, the last couple of years, the games have often been very close with not much in it.

“We just seem to come out on the wrong end of the results all the time, which is very frustrating, but Caley are a really good team and they’re up at the top end of the table right now and arguably theyre one of the favourites to win the league, having just missed out narrowly on going up through the play-offs last season.

“For myself, being in the latter years of my career and with my experience, it is just a case of turning up on the day, but I think these things can sometimes get in your head a little bit.

“Especially when you’re younger, you do maybe think about these things more.

“Myself I tend not to think about that as much.

“I’ve had good spells against teams and bad spells against teams – it’s just the nature of the beast really.

“Especially in our league, it is generally just about who turns up on the day. There’s not much between the teams overall. It’s more about who turns up and performs well.

“Hopefully we can break that sort of hoodoo they’ve got over us and get a win, which would be a much-needed one for us.”

Saturday’s match at Thistle’s Caledonian Stadium kicks off at 3pm.