Lambie to leave Jags

Lambie has enjoyed a long association with Partick

John Lambie has signalled his intent to quit as Partick Thistle manager at the end of the season.

The colourful Jags boss is fed up with the new regulations in the game and, at the age of 63, is anxious for a quieter life.

Lambie was fuming after discovering at the last moment that the transfer window rules would not allow him to sign Plymouth striker Nathan Lowndes.

Lambie, who had been weighing up whether to stay on for another season, declared he has simply had enough.

"I won't be staying on. Not as manager anyway," said Lambie.

Fifa should get someone else to run the game because these people know nothing about the game

John Lambie
Partick manager

"This time next year I will be sunning myself on a beach somewhere.

"I want to put all this aside and it can give someone else a headache because I have had enough."

Lambie is in his third spell as manager at Firhill - his first stint beginning in 1988.

Lambie had spent much of the week setting up Lowndes' loan from the English Second Division side only to discover that Fifa's new rules did not allow it.

That was because the player had been with Livingston last season and, as he had signed for Plymouth in July, the regulations state he could not make a return to Scotland in the same season.

"Fifa should get someone else to run the game because these people know nothing about the game," Lambie fumed.

"It shouldn't matter whether a player has been here or Hong Kong. I really do not know what they are trying to achieve by it.

"They are stopping people from getting a change of work and it is a disgrace."

Lambie revealed that even officials at the Scottish Football Association did not initially realise there would be a problem with the Lowndes move.

He said: "Even the SFA had told us everything would be all right.

"Everything was sorted, the player was getting ready to come up and then we found out it couldn't happen."

Lambie had also hoped to borrow Tottenham striker Steven Ferguson but as he had already been on loan at Motherwell this season that too was an impossibility.