MATCH AGAINST and a String that is actually a number

[azmath moosa]

Hey, i'm having a problem with MATCH() AGAINST()

I have a table with a column called "partners" which is a TEXT type but it stores numbers in the form of text.

For example: "3, 2, 1," like that w/o the quotes.

Now, i store them as text coz i'm kinda like storing an Array from PHP into this. But anyways thats not an issue at all. Everything is fine here.

Now, i want to retrieve all the rows where the column "Partners" contains "3". So, i used the MATCH AGAINST() function but they don't seem to work. This is my syntax:

select * from csp WHERE MATCH(partners) AGAINST ('3,' in boolean mode);

I dont get any rows returned at all. I also learned that MATCH()AGAINST() cannot be used for numbers but i suppose that since the "number" is stored in a string field (type=TEXT), it wont be a problem.

So where is the problem? How can i fix it? Is there any other function in MySQL that can be used other than MATCH() AGAINST()?

My Main Goal: To retrieve all the rows, the columns of which contain the string "3,".

PS: My tables are MyISAM type.