A fleeting visit to Firhill on Tuesday was enough to reassure one that the mayhem which has enhanced/afflicted the dear

old Harry Wraggs throughout four decades in this most jaundiced of professions - and, to listen to older colleagues, long before that - is still present and incorrect.

The original intention had been to chat with the new manager, Gerry Collins, about his Celtic connections (lifelong supporter, best man to Parkhead legend and former manager Tommy Burns etc, etc) ahead of this afternoon's meeting in Maryhill with Martin O'Neill's side. That notion was soon dismissed but a solid arrangement was made to meet at the ground after training.

Once the necessary photographs had been taken, Collins invited me to join him for lunch. The last time I received that offer from a Thistle official was from Collins' predecessor John Lambie, in either his second or third incarnation there, as we sat in his tiny office-cum-broom cupboard.

On that occasion, Lambie produced a loaf of bread, a jar of strawberry jam and a toaster from his desk and we dined like kings, our repast intermittently interrupted when callow footballers stuck their heads round the door to proffer abuse in their gaffer's direction.

This time around, the venue was the player's lounge but the fare - homemade lasagne - was just as satisfying. So too was the banter which ricocheted around the room as

Collins and his assistant, Bobby McCulley, reclined at the coaches' table.

Players were informed that, as a reward for enduring a double session that afternoon, they would be given Thursday off. Bobby just didn't say which Thursday.

The coaches then hid the players' coffee pot under their table, which revelation saw David Lilley accidentally brush the kit man's hand with the scalding receptacle. It'll be chalk marks on blazers next . . .

The ghosts of Jim Melrose, Ian Gibson, John Marr, Paul Kinnaird and Roddy Grant, not to mention Chic Charnley and Alan Rough - both are current members of the backroom staff - would have approved.

It would be wrong, though, to infer from all this that nothing has changed at Firhill since Lambie's departure. A gradual, though hardly imperceptible, transformation has been taking place and not just on the personnel side.

Several of those players who were key members of Lambie's survival mission last season sought their fortunes elsewhere, notably Scott Paterson and Alan Archibald with Dundee United and Alex Burns and Stephen Craigan with Motherwell.

Collins has introduced a more fluent 4-4-2 system to replace his mentor's safety-first 3-5-2 and has been gratified by the results. If not the results, if you get the drift. ''I think our fans will tell you we're playing more attractive football nowadays,'' Collins said. ''We're not a back-to-front team any more. We could have beaten Livingston on the opening day and we should have taken something from Kilmarnock at Rugby Park last weekend but I'm happy with what we're showing.''

Nevertheless, Collins has been at Firhill long enough to have his finger on the pulse of that eclectic mix of bohemians and bozos who follow Thistle. ''Derek Whyte, John Paul McBride and Stephane Bonnes have all been with Celtic but I've told them to forget that ahead of this game.

''Our supporters want to read about things from this club's perspective; they don't want to know which members of our team were in Seville. There's no need to remind our punters that some of our guys are born-and-bred Celtic or Rangers fans.''

McBride and Bonnes are just two of the new faces Collins has brought in and he insists he has no pangs of regret concerning absent friends.

'Speaking from the heart, I wouldn't swop anyone in my squad for the Patersons, Archibalds or Craigans,'' he said, bullishly. ''The lads who have come here have a hunger and desire to do well.I decided that, from now on, everyone will receive one-year contracts. I don't want anyone coming to Firhill to graze. Do well and you'll be guaranteed an extension: anything else and you'll be out the door.''

Along with Aberdeen's Steve Paterson, Collins is the only SPL manager to have earned a living outside the game, a fact he believes makes him appreciate his current status more than most.

''When I stopped playing football I worked 60-hour weeks at an engineering factory in Livingston in order to take home (pounds) 300,'' he claimed. ''I also held a cabbies' licence for years, which I now regret selling even though, ideally, I'd never need to use it again.

''People talk about our guys being the lowest-paid players in the SPL but that talk infuriates me. Even when we're playing twice a week, you're looking at a 20-hour week, being paid to keep fit. As well as that, if they do their jobs properly they'll pick up bonuses which will still take them way above the average working man.''

It's difficult not to draw parallels between Collins' passionate approach and that of old school trade unionists such as Mick McGahey and Jimmy Knapp. He certainly believes in running Thistle as a workers' soviet.

''We lunch with the players every day and we have a core of senior pros - Derek Whyte, Gerry Britton, James Grady and Andy Thomson - we bounce ideas off, whether they're tactical or thoughts about training.

''I don't believe in saying, 'I'm the manager and everyone will do it my way.' I find that if everyone is happy with the way we're working then I'll get a better response.''

As the great man said, it's a form of socialism; without the politics, of course.