Partick Thistle chairman David Beattie has spoken of the relief he and the club felt when manager Alan Archibald stayed at Firhill despite interest from Shrewsbury Town earlier this season.

Beattie is delighted by the performance of both Archibald and his assistant Scott Paterson since they took over at the club in January 2013.

He is realistic enough to know that if things continue to go well on the pitch for the Jags then other suitors are bound to court their services once again.

Beattie only hopes that Thistle can hang on to the pair for as long as possible, because he knows it will be hard to find anyone else who understands the club as much as they do.

“For us, it’s about the manager fitting the ethos and the culture of the club,” Beattie said. “If Archie went, a manager coming in here wouldn’t be doing so only because of his CV, he would have to embrace the way that we as a football club wanted to play our football.

“He would also have to embrace how we manage the club, so there’s more to it than just manager in, manager out. There’s bigger pieces to the jigsaw.

“The more successful the club and the team are, then the more interest there is going to be in Archie and Scott, that just goes with the territory.

“We’ve got contracts in place for the club’s side of things if that does happen, and if Archie and Scott go on to bigger and better things than we can offer them then that’s the way that football is.

“But, so far, it’s working out really well.”

The financial investment in the club made last year by lottery winners Colin and Christine Weir enabled Thistle to reach an agreement with Bank of Scotland that wiped out Thistle’s bank debt and has given the board freedom to plan ahead and support the on-field operation.

It has also meant that not only have the board been able to back the management team with longer term contracts, but invest in longer deals for key playing staff too, with Beattie determined to seize the opportunity to have a longer term view.

“We have a situation now where we can plan for the manager and Scott going forward,” he said.

“We signed them up on long-term contracts, which is something that the club has never really done before, because it is all about planning, sustainability, and not where we can be this year, but where we can be the year after or the year after that.

“When you are up against financial restrictions, you tend to look at things year by year, but now we have two, three and four year plans which we’ve not had before, because that financial stability allows us to do that."

Thistle’s last two seasons have been hampered by poor starts before the team have recovered to challenge for the top half.

Beattie believes that the patience of the board through the tougher times has been vindicated, as they refused to make any knee-jerk decisions even when the club slid to the foot of the table.

“We have to support them when they go through bad times as well, and to be fair that’s what we have done,” he said.

“I think it’s about culture. If it’s just purely results-driven, then we’d be changing our managers all the time, but if you’re trying to create something longer term, then you put somebody in place and you support them. You have to allow it to grow, it won’t be an overnight thing.

“We’re seventh in the league, and I’d love to think we’d make the top six this year after missing out by a point last year. I know that Archie was disappointed with that, but that just shows you how far we’ve come as a club when we can talk about being a top six side.”