Queen's Park are through to the third round of the Scottish Amateur Cup after a 2-1 win over Ayrshire club Onthank. Ross Clark scored both goals in the tie played at Lesser Hampden on Saturday.
13 Oct Gallagher now with Kilwinning
Mark Gallagher is now playing for Kilwinning Rangers. The forward, who was QP's top scorer during the championship winning season with 13 goals, left Hampden during the summer of 2001. However, he returned to the club last November after an unproductive spell at Stranraer. Work commitments limited his appearances and goals to 12 and 2 respectively in the league last season and he parted company with Queen's at the end of it. Gallagher was on target for The Buffs on Saturday, in a 4-0 win over Kilbirnie Ladeside.
7 Oct Win for Queen's in Amateur Cup
Queen's Park recorded a 3-1 win over Weir's Recreation in the first round of the Scottish Amateur Cup on Saturday. As the name suggests, the competition is for all those amateur clubs in Scotland, and of course Queen's are one of those ( and obviously the biggest ). A largely Under-18 side was fielded in the match played at Cathcart. The team are commonly known as the Hampden XI. Last season they exited the competition at the Fourth Round stage, losing to The Jets from Kilbirnie, 2-1.
6 Oct Stirling Albion 1 Queen's Park 0
Queen's disappointing run of form continued with a narrow loss at Forthbank. Colin McKinnon tapped in the only goal on 34 minutes; Queen's had controlled play up until then. Surely this bad run must end soon, as Queen's are playing well enough to be at least midtable, just not scoring goals- 4 in 9 league games is the pitiful total. Here is the Stirling Albion match report.
Ross Jackson appears to have left Queen's Park. The forward was signed in November 2000 from St. Mungo's, and scored his first goal in a 3-1 defeat by Brechin City at Hampden on 15 September 2001. In all he scored 7 goals, all of them last season, including 2 in a Scottish Cup replay at East Fife ( who could forget that injury time equaliser? Magic! ). First team opportunities were extremely limited for Ross during this season, and lack of fitness did not appear to be the main reason. Ross apparently played for amateur club Weir's Recreation on Saturday in a Scottish Amateur Cup tie against Queen's Park, represented mainly by the youth team.
The under-18's were also in action today, in a second round SFA Youth Cup fixture against the youths of East of Scotland League club Spartans, who compete in an amateur league in that area. Queen's enjoyed a resounding 11-3 success at Lesser Hampden. First-teamer John Gemmell, still eligible for this competition, was fielded and grabbed 4 goals.
5 Oct Stirling Albion v. Queen's Park- we're not that bad against this lot, you know
Queen's trip to Forthbank will be made without the services of Brendan Crozier, who has pulled his hamstring, and Steven Canning. Chris Fisher will still be out for another month or so. David Menelaws isn't yet fit, but could be introduced to the team before October is out. For Darren Magee, there is the chance to establish himself in the squad, as for the first time since pre-season, he is available for selection. Even better news is that Damiano Agostini is back, and he will slot in alongside Steven Moffat in central defence. James Allan will hopefully start this week, along with Willie Martin, and Stuart Jack will surely keep his place. John Gemmell may have to sit out another match after playing for the Strollers in midweek, but not impressing to any great extent.
Stirling made a disappointing start under new boss, former Dunfermline and St. Johnstone winger Allan Moore. They are currently in 7th place in the Third Division, after a revival in form which has seen a point gained at top-of-the-league East Fife, and a 2-0 win at Gretna last week. The strikers, Mallan and Dunn, are likely to be key men; Dunn scored twice for Dumbarton in a 2-0 win for the Sons at Hampden last season. Ex-Motherwell player Steven Nicholas is also one to watch, as he picked up the man-of-the-match award in Albion's recent 3-2 loss against Hearts in the League Cup; a fine battling display from Stirling, despite the defeat.
Given their recent improved form, Stirling will definitely start this match against Queen's as favourites. However, Queen's record against this particular team is reasonable, with just one defeat in the last 8 encounters. That came in the most recent game at Forthbank, where Stirling won 3-2, ending a Queen's run of 7 games without losing. Canning and Martin were the scorers for QP in that game, during February of this year. Queen's' last win at Forthbank came in their fourth game of the Second Division campaign of 2000/01, and it was their fourth victory! How long ago that seems. A Frankie Carroll goal was the only score of the game, before a crowd numbering 753. Of course, both sides were relegated at the end of that season, and, intriguingly, were the bottom two clubs at the end of last season also ( albeit in the other order ).
30 Sep Strollers still without a goal in league
The Strollers tonight went down 2-0 to Albion Rovers at Cliftonhill. Diack and McCaig were Rovers' scorers; the former also scored in the meeting of the full teams on Saturday. Queen's were reduced to ten men with the score at 0-0- substitute Alistair McNiven red-carded after only a few minutes on the park. The Strollers have thus failed to score in any of their three RLW games so far, and have gathered only 1 point. Clearly Queen's scoring problems extend to every level of playing.
29 Sep Queen's Park 2 Albion Rovers 4
A most disappointing outcome for Queen's, after a much improved second half performance had seen them come back from 2-0 down. However, two late strikes by Diack and Bradford mean that Rovers go to the top of the table, and that Queen's remain bottom. It would be interesting to know the last occasion that four penalties were awarded in a Queen's Park fixture before yesterday, also to know how many of the awards constituted correct decisions. Not one of yesterday's seemed to fall into that category. Still, for Queen's to have a 50% conversion rate as opposed to Rovers 100% from two penalties each merely underlines the Spiders' problems in front of goal. Johnny Whelan has now missed his last two spot kicks, and ceded responsiblity to Moffat for the second penalty. Click here for a full report of the match.