{"id":175295,"date":"2025-09-11T19:51:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T18:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottishfitbaw.net\/?p=175295"},"modified":"2025-09-12T10:25:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:25:47","slug":"thorn-athletics-mcghee-reflects-on-28-years-of-growth-and-future-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/2025\/09\/11\/thorn-athletics-mcghee-reflects-on-28-years-of-growth-and-future-ambitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Thorn Athletics’ McGhee reflects on 28 years of growth and future ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview on Johnstone Sound’s ‘Scoreboard Sportlight’. The full audio interview can be heard here<\/a><\/span><\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Mark McGhee helped set up a football team for a group of local boys back in 1998, he never imagined it would grow into one of Renfrewshire\u2019s biggest grassroots sports clubs.<\/p>\n

Nearly three decades on, Thorn Athletic has become far more than just a football team. It is now a community institution in Johnstone, running everything from toddler football sessions to walking football, and serving as home to karate, taekwondo, and even wrestling events.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been involved there for an eternity now, but I think it\u2019s coming up 28 years,\u201d he said. \u201cI founded the club in 1998 and just basically watched it grow and develop since then. So it\u2019s been a long journey. Now we\u2019ve got a team in the West of Scotland League, community programmes and a variety of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thorn Athletic has grown far beyond just football. \u201cWe\u2019ve got our own facility down at Thorn Athletic Sports Academy and it\u2019s busy between a variety of different things \u2013 modern toddler groups, karate, taekwondo, football, you name it. We\u2019ve got 20 teams, everything from kids at 18 months right through to the walking football. It\u2019s grown arms and legs since we started in 1998.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark admits his own chance of a playing career was cut short at a young age, but his passion for football and community drove him to create something lasting. \u201cI had two screws in my hip when I was growing up, spent a year on crutches, so I quickly realised playing football wasn\u2019t going to be much good for me. A group of boys approached me and said, \u2018We\u2019d like to get a Johnstone team on the go, but we can\u2019t get anybody to run us.\u2019 I stupidly said yes \u2013 and the rest, as they say, is history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, the journey has had its struggles. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of low points,\u201d Mark recalled. \u201cOne of our storage containers that contained a lot of the stuff that services the outdoor football pitch was completely burnt. There was about \u00a320,000 worth of equipment in there. That was a big one for us. But everybody rallied round, everybody was generous, and we got donations from a lot of people. That\u2019s what keeps you going.\u201d<\/p>\n

The step into senior football has been a major milestone. \u201cObviously, we joined the West of Scotland League four years ago and it\u2019s been pretty hectic since then. Back-to-back promotions, won the league last year. It\u2019s reinvigorated me, reinvigorated a lot of people within the club. We\u2019re going to new venues, it\u2019s increased the profile of the club no end, and we\u2019ve been lucky enough in the four years we\u2019ve been there to have two promotions and one league title. Sometimes you look back and you think to yourself, how on earth did we end up here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking to the future, Mark said Thorn is focused on its next big development. \u201cWe\u2019ve been successful with funding bids to the SFA Community Facilities Fund and Renfrewshire Council\u2019s artificial pitches fund. Our planning permission has been submitted and we would like to be underway maybe before the end of the year on the development of a full-size floodlit astroturf pitch with additional car parking facilities. That would be phase one. Phase two would be adding additional training facilities and floodlights to the grass pitch, and phase three would be adding five-a-side pitches. It\u2019s a three to five year plan and it\u2019ll be transformational when it happens. I would expect the club to double in size within three to five years of that happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

And for McGhee, it all comes back to the original purpose \u2013 giving people opportunities through sport. \u201cIt\u2019s about changing people\u2019s lives, making them healthier, giving them a focus. We\u2019re already running free programmes \u2013 Disney Playmakers for girls, McDonald\u2019s free sessions, walking football. There\u2019s lots going on and if anybody\u2019s interested in joining, just drop us an email. Hopefully we can help a few people along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview on Johnstone Sound’s ‘Scoreboard Sportlight’. The full audio interview can be heard here. When Mark McGhee helped set up a football team for a group of local boys back in 1998, he never imagined it would grow into one of Renfrewshire\u2019s biggest grassroots sports clubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":166833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[102],"class_list":["post-175295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wosfl-second-division","tag-thorn-athletic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo.jpg","featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo.jpg",932,482,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo-300x155.jpg",300,155,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo-768x397.jpg",640,331,true],"large":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo.jpg",640,331,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo.jpg",932,482,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo.jpg",932,482,false],"joomsport-thmb-medium":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo-310x160.jpg",310,160,true],"rn-home-thumb":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo.jpg",320,165,false],"rn-home-rect":["https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/West_of_Scotland_Football_League_-thorn-logo.jpg",480,248,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Ricky Kelly","author_link":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/author\/mudricky\/"},"category_info":"WoSFL Second Division<\/a>","tag_info":"WoSFL Second Division","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renfrewshire24.co.uk\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}