The Hearts goalkeeper had seemingly already been anointed the eventual successor to Craig Gordon, whenever the Scotland No.1 decides to call time on his career, before he’d even played a minute of football above Scottish League Two level, such was the impressiveness of a 2020/21 spell with Albion Rovers.
Naturally, Robbie Neilson and the club’s management staff wanted the player tested at a higher level. Two Championship clubs showed serious interests and, in July of last year, Partick Thistle won the race for his services.
After playing in two Premier Sports Cup group games, Stone impressed enough to win the starting job ahead of Jamie Sneddon, who had been at Firhill for four years after moving from Cowdenbeath, but had yet to fully make himself the undisputed No.1.
Things began well enough. The 20-year-old, still a teenager at the time, stood out with a couple of remarkable saves in a 3-0 away thumping of Dunfermline Athletic in early August. However, the following week he made two costly errors, one of which was particularly bad, in a 3-1 loss at Arbroath. Either through opting for more experience and therefore a safer pair of hands, or just wanting to withdraw the youngster before things got worse and his confidence eroded, manager Ian McCall made a change the following week with Sneddon returning in goal. Stone then sat on the bench and watched as his team-mate kept eight consecutive clean sheets, an all-time club record. Stone wouldn’t play again.
"It wasn't wasted time because it happens to everyone throughout their career, when you find yourself out of the team and have to work to get back in,” he said of the experience. “Every loan is for learning and I definitely still learned something from that loan.
"Someti
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