Regular readers (I have a few surely) will have gathered my allegiance to a Glasgow senior football club not named Celtic, Rangers or Partick Thistle. I saw my first Queen's Park match in August 1996 when my Dad took me to Hampden Park to see a Coca Cola Cup first round tie against Ross County. A crowd of 638 saw Queen's win 3-1 after extra time. The first goal I ever saw in a Spiders game was for the opposition when we went a goal down in the second half. My first Queen's goal was the equaliser by centre half Ian Maxwell. If we hadn't won I probably wouldn't have gone back. Incidentally, my second game was a home league match against East Stirlingshire. A 3-3 draw made me realise at an early stage being a Spiders fan wouldn't be a smooth ride.
Anyway, I digress. From my second season until starting university I was a fairly regular attendee, home and away, even having a season ticket. Part time supermarket work curbed my attendance for the following 5 years or so. Nowadays, things depend on other weekend commitments, primarily training and racing. I now average between 15 and 20 games per season. Occasionally however, I will also take in one of the club's reserve or youth team games if I have a free evening. At the beginning of April, such an opportunity arose.
Before this season, Queen's had a separate reserve team, affectionately known as "The Strollers," and youth teams up to under 19. Now there's an under 20 side which plays in what is known as the Development League West. Home games are played at Lesser Hampden, situated next to the main stadium. Lesser is also the club's training base for all its teams. In its shadow is the club's new headquarters, opened in 2013, called the JB McAlpine Pavilion. The man whose name the facility bears played for Queen's Park from 1919 until 1933, making a total of 547 appearances and scoring 192 goals. Thereafter he served the club as a Committee member, taking on the presidency from 1953 to 1955. As many will know, Hampden was used for the track and field athletics at the 2014 Commonwealth Games with Lesser serving as the warm up track. This proved a difficult time for Queen's with the first team decanted to Airdrie for home games for 14 months and all the teams training, and the reserve and youth teams playing, at the Toryglen football facilities. We've been back home though since January and can truly lay claim to a Games legacy with the new excellent office and training facilities. The club may only pay the players travelling expenses but the set up is otherwise professional to a tee. The Pavilion can boast a bar and bistro and balconies giving views of the pitch.
On Friday 10th April then, I saw the under 20s were playing Queen of the South so, having a night off training, I made the short drive to Glasgow's South Side. Quite an entertaining game ensued and I was equally impressed with the ball control and passing of both sides. Queen's lost the corresponding fixture in Dumfries 6-0 so it surprised me we had the better of the first half. The Doonhamers best chance was a shot off the crossbar which thankfully bounced out rather than in.
Above: Queen's Park (black and white) and Queen of the South (blue) under 20 teams in action at Lesser Hampden.
At half time, I took the chance to check out our bar and bistro, relaxing with a cup of tea on the balcony. The second half was a bit more even with the visiting Queens team pressing their hosts back more (note a key point here. The "Queen's" in Queen's Park has an apostrophe. "Queens" when referring to Queen of the South does not). The Spiders defence survived a few scares though and stood firm. We even had the last chance of the game, after which the referee immediately blew for full time.
0-0 was the final score but it was far from boring and quite a chilled way to spend a couple of hours and kick off the weekend. The next day, I saw the first team beat Annan Athletic 2-0 at "big" Hampden next door. The bumpy ride as a Spiders fan can prove smoother on some occasions.
Above: the JB McAlpine Pavilion lit up at night.
No comments:
Post a Comment