THE prospect of Partick Thistle digging their way out of trouble at the lower end of the Premiership suddenly doesn’t seem so daunting for Tomas Cerny, after digging his way through six-foot high snowdrifts just to make it to training.

The goalkeeper lives in rural Banknock, which bore the full brunt of the ‘beast from the east’ last week, leaving his house on a hill overlooking the village inaccessible.

After trekking his way through waist-deep snow to make it to Firhill last Friday only for Saturday’s game against Ross County to be postponed, Cerny is relieved to have an easier route not only to work, but to a food supply this week.

“The snow was crazy,” Cerny said. “Some of the snow drifts were higher than me, so over six feet, and that was all across a mile stretch of road from my house down to the village.

“On the Thursday the snow was really bad, but I walked down to the village because we had no milk, no eggs, nothing. It took me an hour and a half to go down and back, it was terrible, and when I got to the shop they didn’t have a loaf of bread or anything else.

“I had to walk back up empty-handed apart from the last small bottle of milk from the petrol garage for my son Luka.

“The road was completely blocked, and on Friday, I still thought the Ross County game was on. Obviously, I couldn’t drive, so Scotty Paterson was coming to pick me up down at the village.

“I had to walk over a mile in snow above my waist most of the way, so I was getting stuck and it took me about 45 minutes to walk that mile.

“Eventually I managed to get in, and then the game got postponed. I went back on Friday night and had to walk all the way back up.”

Although Cerny was gutted that such a crucial game for Thistle was called off, he had more reason to be relieved at the postponement.

“One part of me was disappointed because I had made it in and I wanted to go up and play the game, but I was dreading coming back late at night on Saturday and having to walk up that hill in the complete darkness,” he said.

“Added to that, I was leaving my wife and little Luka up on the hill without any access to shops or anything, and our LPG [liquid petroleum gas] was running low, so I was worried that was going to run out too. It wasn’t an ideal situation.”

Cerny is grateful to near neighbour John Penman, owner of local social enterprise Cloybank, for sacrificing his weekend to clear the path between his home and the rest of civilization.

And he says that the chance to gain some perspective after the frustrations of the last few weeks on the field has been welcome.

“John spent the whole weekend at his own expense in terms of diesel and his time, and he managed to clear that whole road with his digger," Cerny said.

“He did a great job, and if he hadn’t done that, there is no way I would have been able to get to training this week in my car. I would have had to get somebody to come and get me in the village again or miss training altogether.

It was actually quite nice, because the community all came together. There are people who are vulnerable and couldn’t get shopping, and people even got shopping for us. I was also able to help some of the older people by clearing their driveways over the weekend.

“In a way it was good to give me a bit of perspective, because the weekend wasn’t about football, it was about helping each other, and it was humbling to get help and then be able to help others.

“We got to think about things other than football for a couple of days, and that wasn’t a bad thing I don’t think.”