The Big Queen's Park FC Thread

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well that was as bleak a Monday night as I've spent in a while. 

[qpfc]

Enjoyed getting a first proper look at the youngsters against what looked like a fairly strong livi side. Can’t say I was too over the moon to see a reserve side listed prior to game considering we were getting charged a tenner but I was pleasantly surprised with what I watched in hindsight. 

Can’t say the game consisted of many goal bound chances for either side but the standard of the youngsters was really promising. You can tell these guys have been coached in a certain manner which can admittedly be very heart stopping in terms of the area of the pitch you might lose the ball but equally when it pays off, it’s very easy on the eye 

Biggest positives for me were Callan McKenna in goals and Lewis Reid at the back. McKenna particularly stood out with his distribution which was incredibly impressive and some of his saves were equally excellent. I think he’s got a massive future from first viewing and it’s easy to see why he’s Scotland’s under 17 keeper. Lewis Reid to me looks ready made for first team football despite being 18. Built like a brick and solid distribution with the ball as like everyone else

Healy looked bright in attacking midfield role, he looked a lot more comfortable than he did out wide last season. Hepburn looks like a positive addition and with the likes of Thomas and Paton up top with him, I’m incredibly excited to see what he can bring 

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by qpfc

[an86]

Really good from what was effectively Young QP against a more experienced Livi side. Could see what we’re trying to do, had some really nice passages of play and could have had a couple of goals. Great header by Anderson for the goal. 
 

Really liked the look of young McKenna in goals. A big lad, confident, made some good saves and looked very comfortable on the ball. 
 

Stand not as rubbish as I thought it’d be. Looking round the place just feels like a huge opportunity, though. Nonetheless, it’s good to be home. Horrible night, but lots of positives. 

[roy of the rovers]

Wet, wet and wet again at Lesser Hampden tonight. Not a great game for the neutral altho' I was mainly only there to see the new gaff before you vacate it again. Not a bad place but compact and bijou for an "ambitious club" like Queen's. Good to see the pie shop is still as expensive as previously, £2 for crisps and £3.40 for Pepsi Max etc.

I was impressed by the pitch taking that constant downpour, appreciated it even more when I was going home and a speedboat would have been more appropriate than a car!

 

As for the ticket situation what the hell? I went on to buy mine on Friday morning not too long after the general sale started and there were only a handful of tickets available in the Livi and the QP fans sections, from a capacity of what 2000-3000? The crowd tonight was a mere 637 and several seat were empty near me at the car park end.

[Dunning1874]

On 09/07/2023 at 18:45, Grumpy Soo-sider said:

£5m for Hampden is not a good deal in anyone's books. QP were indeed shafted by the SFA. 

Sure, we could have said no to the deal, and died as a club. 

The truth of the matter was accept the deal or go out of business. We chose the red pill.

It's entirely reasonable to acknowledge the SFA had Queen's Park over a barrel with the purchase of Hampden and that the land was actually worth far more than they paid so lingering resentment over this is understandable, but portraying this as a one way street of the big bad SFA shafting poor defenceless Queen's Park is a matter of perspective.

You can look at it as the pioneers of the game being cruelly turfed out of their home by an uncaring governing body who wouldn't have given two shits if this had been followed by Queen's Park ending up in the Lowland League and entering a death spiral.

You can alternatively look at it as a club who were subsidised heavily by the governing body and public purse for decades, to a scale that no other Scottish club has ever seen, akin to a landlord happy for their tenant and others to cover their costs. When that tenant decided the situation was untenable for them they made yet another massive financial contribution to the club, leaving them with the resources and the land available to build a fit for purpose stadium.

Queen's Park have done extremely well out of the SFA, which you acknowledge yourself by saying not having their subsidy would have put you out of business. You were obviously fully entitled to be compensated as owners of the stadium, but far from other clubs cruelly ignoring your plight and horrible treatment at the hands of the authorities, this has been an advantage for Queen's Park over the rest of Scottish football.

[qpfc]

14 minutes ago, an86 said:

Really liked the look of young McKenna in goals. A big lad, confident, made some good saves and looked very comfortable on the ball. 

Can’t believe he’s only 16 tbh, an absolute unit. I’m assuming heraghty might be out the picture now unless he’s picked up an injury of some sort 

[an86]

12 minutes ago, roy of the rovers said:

As for the ticket situation what the hell? I went on to buy mine on Friday morning not too long after the general sale started and there were only a handful of tickets available in the Livi and the QP fans sections, from a capacity of what 2000-3000? The crowd tonight was a mere 637 and several seat were empty near me at the car park end.

I wish we had 2000-3000 seats. Stand holds 900. Was free for members and not all of them will have been at the game. On top of that, I reckon a few folk will have spent their fiver or tenner and just chucked it because it was pishing down. Much busier than I expected it to be tbh. 

[Arachnophile]

17 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

It's entirely reasonable to acknowledge the SFA had Queen's Park over a barrel with the purchase of Hampden and that the land was actually worth far more than they paid so lingering resentment over this is understandable, but portraying this as a one way street of the big bad SFA shafting poor defenceless Queen's Park is a matter of perspective.

You can look at it as the pioneers of the game being cruelly turfed out of their home by an uncaring governing body who wouldn't have given two shits if this had been followed by Queen's Park ending up in the Lowland League and entering a death spiral.

You can alternatively look at it as a club who were subsidised heavily by the governing body and public purse for decades, to a scale that no other Scottish club has ever seen, akin to a landlord happy for their tenant and others to cover their costs. When that tenant decided the situation was untenable for them they made yet another massive financial contribution to the club, leaving them with the resources and the land available to build a fit for purpose stadium.

Queen's Park have done extremely well out of the SFA, which you acknowledge yourself by saying not having their subsidy would have put you out of business. You were obviously fully entitled to be compensated as owners of the stadium, but far from other clubs cruelly ignoring your plight and horrible treatment at the hands of the authorities, this has been an advantage for Queen's Park over the rest of Scottish football.

I have this bizarre and improbable dream that someday soon, someone who has even a vague idea of the facts will contribute to this debate.

Good to dream I suppose.

Anyway, I agree that the keeper looked very assured tonight, Healey looked promising in the Savoury role and although there may not be many getting first team starts, few of them would be out of place on the bench.

Pitch held up well under constant downpour too.

[CathcartSkins]

3 hours ago, Spider Rico said:

Reserves vs Livi first team in the pissing rain. So glad I bought a ticket for this 

We don't have reserve team.

[Dunning1874]

7 hours ago, Arachnophile said:

I find it hard to believe that any of the many doubters on here would be calling on their club to refuse such investment if they were in a similar place to where we were a few years ago.

As for this, absolutely, anyone who says they'd want their club to refuse that investment is at it, and undoubtedly some of the fans of clubs who aren't being bankrolled to the same extent (everyone in the division other than Dundee United) will be motivated by jealousy as they would all be enjoying the ride on the pitch just as much regardless of views on what's happening off the park.

I think what really gets fans of other clubs piping up though, rather than solely seeing a threat to their own club's position, is the total head in the sand denial stuff. Yes, the vast majority of you do acknowledge part of the reality of the Haughey situation in terms of the current sustainability of it while you have that joke of a setup at Lesser, and it's certainly not fair to say the support as a whole have failed to ask questions or criticise: Dempster and the committee regularly get it in the neck and rightly so.

However, when even with acknowledging those points, Queen's Park fans are still coming out with stuff like this:

7 hours ago, Arachnophile said:

a cursory glance at where the money is being spent makes it very clear that it is not being used to fund a Gretna style "off the peg" promotion team. It is clearly going primarily towards staff and facilities to enable the club to develop its own homegrown talent some of whom will filter through to the first team and some of whom will move on & generate some income for the club.

 

 

Then fans of other clubs are absolutely going to continue accusing you of deluding yourselves. Investing in a youth system and proper scouting alongside flinging wheelbarrows of money at first team players doesn't stop it being like Gretna. Even if you're paying it to players who might have resale value, it's still massive investment in the first team that the average Championship side could never get near. The fact you signed a quality young player like Grant Savoury from a League One club doesn't change the reality of paying him huge money relative to the rest of the division: Gretna made many similar signings on their way up the leagues. It's especially Gretna-like when you launch the best part of £2K a week at proven Championship players who aren't ever going to attract a transfer fee like Dom Thomas.

By all means enjoy the ride on the park regardless, but for as long as you deny the obvious reality of the first team expenditure fans of other clubs are going to continue to enjoy piping up to make the Gretna comparisons. You can enjoy getting to lord it over others for that too, but any Queen’s Park fans bothered by other fans talking about it need to accept this goes with the territory of throwing big wads of cash around.

[GloriousHoops]

Oh I'm not at all sure about this goal kick tactic. 

I get the idea, keep possession, but it's giving me the willies. 

[Zanetti]

22 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

The fact you signed a quality young player like Grant Savoury from a League One club doesn't change the reality of paying him huge money relative to the rest of the division: Gretna made many similar signings on their way up the leagues. It's especially Gretna-like when you launch the best part of £2K a week at proven Championship players who aren't ever going to attract a transfer fee like Dom Thomas.

Got a source for that?

[D'Jaffo]

13 minutes ago, Zanetti said:

Got a source for that?

I know for a fact we made Thomas an offer of over 1K a week and in our managers words you “blew it out the water”. He’s absolutely on what was quoted above. 

[Zanetti]

27 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I know for a fact we made Thomas an offer of over 1K a week and in our managers words you “blew it out the water”. He’s absolutely on what was quoted above. 

Sorry, but that's not a credible source for any of our players being on "the best part of £2k per week".

Edited July 10, 2023 by Zanetti

[D'Jaffo]

20 minutes ago, Zanetti said:

Sorry, but that's not a credible source for any of our players being on "the best part of £2k per week".

Sorry, I wasn’t trying to convince you. It’s only QP fans that have a hard time grasping how they managed to end up with actually footballers playing for them instead of the amateurs they were used to. 
 

It’s not a bad thing. It’s just bizarre that the fans refuse to accept that’s what’s going on. 

[Zanetti]

2 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

Sorry, I wasn’t trying to convince you. It’s only QP fans that have a hard time grasping how they managed to end up with actually footballers playing for them instead of the amateurs they were used to. 
 

It’s not a bad thing. It’s just bizarre that the fans refuse to accept that’s what’s going on. 

It has nothing to do with refusing to accept what's going on; Dom Thomas is bound to be our highest paid player and is almost certainly on a decent wage. I just find it bizarre how confidently fans of other clubs speak about our finances. 

[D'Jaffo]

6 minutes ago, Zanetti said:

It has nothing to do with refusing to accept what's going on; Dom Thomas is bound to be our highest paid player and is almost certainly on a decent wage. I just find it bizarre how confidently fans of other clubs speak about our finances. 

At this level with the amount of leaks and stuff that get out at each club with relation to certain things, why is it such a shock that fans might have an idea of what a couple of players are earning roughly? I’ve not actually said an exact figure because ultimately I do not know. Anything I’ve been told is more in relation to Ayr than it is to Queens Park. I have no reason to doubt what I was told about us offering Dom Thomas a really good deal despite knowing deep down he’d probably not accept it given our status at the time and how good he is. Nonetheless we made a really good offer which I was told would’ve made him our highest earner last season and was in excess of a grand a week. Lee Bullen choosing to say that we were blown out the water by yourselves would indicate that we didn’t even get close to it. I think it’s fair to say that he’ll be on close to 2K a week at QP. 
 

As I’ve said, I have no real issue with the spending of money. Every team that’s won this league in the last however many years has had to spend more money than their competitors because that’s the easiest way to do it. Ayr don’t have the means to do it although I’m well aware that if David Smith got bored waiting on our “5 year plan” to come good then we could most likely go and compete with everyone besides Dundee United. You could probably say the same for most teams though. 

[mcjameos]

36 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I know for a fact we made Thomas an offer of over 1K a week and in our managers words you “blew it out the water”. He’s absolutely on what was quoted above. 

To suggest you know his current salary because your manager said we "blew it out the water" is niaive. Your manager could have been saving face because he didn't want to go to Ayr. I don't doubt he's on a decent wage but truth is you don't know (and I don't care). However, if you really did know, that would need to come from having a priveledged position,  you certainly shouldn't be quoting it on a public forum. 

[D'Jaffo]

15 minutes ago, mcjameos said:

However, if you really did know, that would need to come from having a priveledged position,  you certainly shouldn't be quoting it on a public forum. 

It really wouldn’t. 

[Arachnophile]

If I had a pound for every time someone on these forums has plucked a figure out their arse and claimed it's one player's wages or another team's budget, I'd be even better off than Dom Thomas.