palmy_cammy

The Gretna stuff has been well covered both previously and by the posters above and I would agree with it all. What I will say about Annan though, is that yes we have a good relationship with them, but they lost their "cuddly younger sibling" feeling after we stole a win at Galabank in the 2015 League Cup (http://www.qosfc.com/match-1276). We just about sneaked through in that one after extra time, but for large parts of the game looked like going out and it felt way worse than your standard Queens defeat to lower league opposition. Likewise when the full time whistle went and we had won, it felt more significant than simply beating a lower league team in an early round of a cup. That said I don't recall the match last season holding the same importance, but then again it was the second game of the season and I had already seen enough to feel pretty dejected about our prospects.

Great to hear there were 161 entrants in the shirt draw last night, which I believe was only down 2 from last year. A tremendous effort given the circumstances. We don't have a big support, but what a great bunch the fans we do have are! I'm a big fan of the shirt draw, one of the best things the club have ever come up with.

He’s absolutely pish. More interested in arguing with referees and trying to draw fouls than contributing anything positive. As he was with us first time round, and as he appeared when he came up against us for Morton.

We're fortunate in a way in that we get to see how it all pans out for the Premiership clubs, and hopefully by the time it comes into force for ourselves all of the glitches will have been ironed out. It will almost certainly be a web streaming platform either accessed from the club's website, or more likely a third party site. I'm sure the club will make the information available as soon as they have it.

https://www.pieandbovril.com/articles/413-spfl-streaming

All depends how early we sack Johnston really, and just how bad a squad he leaves behind for his replacement. Given his cup record last season I can't imagine the new man will have a "transfer war chest". So yeah, seaside here we come.

Yeah everything is terrible. Wouldn't surprise me if we have to pay Livingston 15% of the fee.

I’m too young to have seen this kit from 1989/90 in the flesh but from the photos I’ve seen it’s the best we’ve had by a distance. The away kit to go with it is a cracker as well.

Fair enough, I think the general tone of my post still stands though and whatever the reasons it doesn't change the fact he hasn't kicked a ball for a while. FWIW I hope we can find a role for him as he seemed to turn the fortunes of the reserves around in his short time in charge and as one of the few Queens players to forge a successful career in the game he should be an inspiration to our budding stars. I always found Rooney and Mercer to be an interesting pair. If you could merge the two together you'd have a tremendous player on your hands. Rooney is a real athlete and has all the physical attributes required to be a professional footballer. However I've seen dogs running onto public parks and show more positional awareness chasing the ball than Rooney. John Robertson is a highly experienced and respected coach, so it isn't a huge surprise that he's managed to improve Rooney's game. He was very young and raw when he was with us. Mercer on the other hand seems like your typical limited player who has got where he has through hard work and perseverance. There's a lot to be said for that, and if we'd had a squad of Scott Mercers last season we'd have been in a better state than we were.

Deary me this fetish for signing former players has reached a ridiculous new depth. 35 year old Wullie Gibson, the retired winger, who hasn't played at this level since 2012, would be a good signing for central midfield? I mean he would be an upgrade on Kidd...

I agree about trying keep a nucleus of a squad and build on it but that only works if the nucleus is half decent. I’m not at all sorry to see last seasons squad getting emptied, I just wish the manager was going as well. It’s telling that even the so-called “best of the bunch” that some wanted to keep have all dropped a level or more.

With the greatest respect to Albion, can you ever really say "all going well" if you are drawing 1-1 with them?

SD and DD have already nominated some strong contenders. In terms of sore goals to lose though, surely those in a cup final are worthy of inclusion? You could nominate 2 of the 3 conceded against Rangers in the Scottish Cup Final. Not much you can say about Boyd's opener, it was a cracking strike, but Beasley's was one of those that if he'd hit it cleanly it gets saved but instead it trundled in and looked to have killed the game making it 2-0, very sore! We then somehow managed to get ourselves back into the game, only for Boyd to pop up with a free header from a corner, the definitive sucker punch. I also remember being particularly devastated by David Hutton's howler in the 2010 Challenge Cup final against Ross County. It was a glorious day, we had a decent crowd up and everything was in place for a great day out and a chance to win a trophy. Instead the game was over after 9 minutes (I had to look this up, I would have had it as even earlier).

Bit of both! You hear talk of “solid 7/10 every week” players. Mercer was a solid 6/10 every week. Sadly that ranks him among our top performers over the past few years.

Big season coming up for Wilson you have to feel. He's definitely got all the attributes to be a combative, box-to-box type player but he was a shadow of his former self second time round for us. Last seasons squad were crying out for someone to take charge of things in the middle of the park and drag them out of the mire but instead of doing that he joined them in being a passive wet blanket of a player. I'm not holding it against him too much, it was a big ask for a young lad to salvage an already sunken ship. I'm sure with a run of games and playing in a successful team he will do well. It's definitely true to say he is similar in style to Jamie Adams, but not as enthusiastic. Even at our lowest ebb last season with the rest of the team downing tools, Adams would have been flying into tackles and making lung-busting runs. We didn't get any of that from Wilson. Maybe it has been coached out of him at Killie in favour of a more disciplined approach, or perhaps it was down to Johnston and his rag tag bunch of losers. Either way I'm not too disappointed he won't be returning, but I will be interested to see how it turns out for him. I'm a wee bit disappointed to see Jamie Macdonald go elsewhere. I'm not normally one who is pining for ex-players to return, if anything I think some of our fans are far too obsessed with the notion. However Macdonald seemed like an obvious one that made sense and was realistic as well. He would have been a safe pair of hands and lord knows we need that next season.

Not re-signing last season's squad, Johnston not being able to sign players, and Johnston not picking up a wage from the club would probably be my 3 wishes if I found a genie in a lamp. This situation can't go on long enough as far as I'm concerned!

Ah the old pre-season knicker wetting has started. Nature is healing.

He'll be like a kid let loose in a toy shop if we get a windfall from Dykes moving on. It'll be like Chisholm chucking our Scottish Cup money on a grand a week for Stewart Kean. Hopefully if Dykes does move on it's to Rangers, that way Johnston will be long gone by the time the cheque clears.

We just need to be patient until more concrete plans are in place then I'm sure there will be a rush of activity as all clubs burst into life. My biggest concern is still who is signing the players, not when.

You mean something like this from 11 days ago? http://www.qosfc.com/news-5064

It's quite alarming the number of our fans that seem keen to let the same manager take charge of the same group of players all over again. I know it was a while ago now, but surely everyone remembers we were saved from certain relegation by a virus, and were embarrassed in every cup competition we entered? This idea that a blend of youngsters and "old heads" will be some sort of miracle fix is also a bit strange to me, isn't that what we tend to end up with most years anyway? Our status in the game means we are always going to be "blooding" young players hopefully on the way up (either our own, one's we've picked up from elsewhere, or loan players from a level above) and picking up older players on the decline. As for this fantasy notion of building for the future, this is something that is a complete rarity in modern football at any level, let alone ours. Most manager's are lucky if they are in charge for more than 2 seasons, it's not in their interests to build for the future as in all likelihood it will be another manager that reaps the benefits. Johnston will start the season in the last year of his contract, he's understandably not going to be caring too much about what happens to Queens in 3 or 4 years. His priority will be doing as well as he can in the coming season to either remain employed by Queens, or better still have earned an upward move, or at the very least not done so terribly that he falls off the managerial merry-go-round completely.

McShane made 9 appearances in League 1 last season. Yes I've never rated him, but surely even his biggest backers have to admit his form has fallen off a cliff. Using last season as any sort of yard stick is absurd as well. Scott McLaughlin and Stephen Simmons would be a significant upgrade on anything we had last season.

A decent midfield partnership if the aim was to build the laziest midfield partnership in the history of football.

There was an interesting but short discussion recently on here about how many different supporters groups we have and how they possibly detract from each other to a degree (at least I think that was the point being made. I wonder if it's a similar case with the Tanner Fund? Dumfries and Galloway isn't a region that's exactly flush with cash, and as it stands there are already several ways people are dipping into their pocket for the club. Just off the top of my head: Season tickets or pay on the gate entry to the game Money spent at or before the game - programmes, half time draw ticket, arena/club shop/pie shop Queens weekly draw/deluxe draw Then there are the supporters clubs and the trust as mentioned above, where money raised goes to the club indirectly through; player sponsorship, shirt draw entries, youth development donations etc. Not to mention the money that goes towards following the club but doesn't fill the clubs coffers such as travel to away games and all the money spent in between. Hopefully it's a slow burner and it will take off once we get a bit of normality back, I don't think we are a fan base that is short in giving to the club though. It's just that a) there aren't that many of us and b) we can't necessarily afford to give any more.

I don't think we can afford to start building a squad until that "possible start date" becomes a "probable start date" or even a "definite start date". As for signing targets, it's going to be a complete free-for-all, with most teams starting from scratch. I suppose the teams that did well enough last year might stick with what they know and re-sign a lot of last season's squad. Better the devil you now and all that. That wouldn't be an advisable strategy for ourselves though. Assuming we stick with Johnston, which unfortunately seems likely, hopefully he has learned some major lessons from last season. We basically require a whole squad, but priorities have to be; a reliable goalkeeper, actual wide men instead of 10 central midfielders none any better than the others, and an energetic partner for Dobbie. Of the ones released there isn't anyone I'm desperate to see return, but I'd be fine with Semple, Mercer and Lyon returning. Kilday, Murray and Hamilton would be acceptable.