Ian Cathro may not have found many backers within the often incestuous world of Scottish football which he now inhabits since his appointment as Hearts manager, but he’ll find a friendly face in the opposite dugout tomorrow.

Partick Thistle boss Alan Archibald, like Kilmarnock’s Kris Boyd, encountered Cathro in the process of doing his coaching badges. Unlike Boyd though, he took away a positive impression of his chances to make it in football management.

As a young coach who had opportunity rather thrust upon him himself when he took over at Firhill, Archibald knows first-hand the task that Cathro faces as a leader of footballers.

And he believes that with the culture already in place at Hearts, he will have no problems garnering the respect of those players, despite what some of his erstwhile classmates might think.

“He was on a part of my pro-licence and he was on the ‘A’ licence as well and he’s a nice lad,” Archibald said.

“I don’t really get all the big hoo-ha about it. He’s gone to a good club with a good infrastructure and all the best to him.

“He was just the same as the rest of the guys there and he seemed a decent enough chap, so I wish him all the best.

“Craig Levein is obviously there above him and he can lean on him, they’ve got good youth players coming through and they’ve got good boys signed up, so everything is there for him to go and do well and that makes a massive difference.

“When I started as well I knew the club and I knew what we had. We had a decent squad and that makes the job a lot easier.

“A couple of players have already come out and say they respect him for what he has done in the game already. He’s worked at some top clubs and I think he will have earned that respect as soon as he got on the training ground.

“Him coming in will probably make it a little bit harder for us. He’ll be desperate for that victory, so I’m sure the fans will give him good backing at the game and we need to make sure we’re ready for that.

“I think Hearts will come out of the traps really fast and we’ve got to be prepared.”

Thistle might have come up short against the top teams in the recent past, but the memory of a special night under the lights at Tynecastle fuels Archibald’s belief that they can go there and get a result.

A stirring second-half fightback saw Thistle run out 4-2 winners and secure their Premiership safety back in May 2014, and the Jags boss is hoping to summon that same spirit again tomorrow.

“We didn’t lay a glove on them there last season, that’s for sure, but the 4-2 game was one of the better nights and probably my favourite game as a manager,” he said.

“It was such a relief to get over the line, so we’ve got good memories there as well. We got a stroke of luck that night and good performances as well, and we’ll need that again come Saturday.

“The players know it can be done, and we ran them close at the start of the season here when a last-minute deflection won them the game and at that point it could have went either way.

“On our day we know that we can go and compete with them.”