2006/07 Season Review

A serialised account of our season by our man who has been at every match home and away - Ewan Lithgow

Part Four - October

26th May 2007

October was a quiet month on the club front. With Scotland playing on the 7th it was a fortnight in before there was any official action to discuss. Queens though made use of the idle weekend by arranging a closed door friendly with Annan Athletic, which finished 2-2. I'm not really sure of the strength of the side that played (I was at the Scotland v France game) but Sean O'Connor scored both of our goals whilst Graham Bell and Gary McMenamin, brother of Gretna's Colin, scored for Annan. The quiet spell was also used to announce a new youth development initiative based around Queens home matches and local schools visits. Jim Thomson was appointed as the club's first Schools Liaison Officer in addition to his playing duties and revelled in the role. On the pitch though our luck was way out when Partick Thistle came visiting to complete the first quarter of the fixture list. Despite dominating the opening half we failed to score and were punished by two wonderful goals against the run of play from the visitors. The first came from Mark Roberts and was a fine finish, the second was by Simon Donnelly on the end of a fine passing move. The match did at least see some bright news as both Eric Paton and Graham Weir, wearing a mask to protect his cheekbone, made their returns from injury. Airdrie's win at home to Clyde though meant we fell five points adrift at the foot of the table. Plenty of effort against Thistle with 'masked man' Weir leading this charge.

The following week saw an absolute unmitigated disaster of a performance at Perth as we fell to a 5-0 defeat to St Johnstone. We actually started the match reasonably brightly without really troubling the home side but the unfortunate Barry John Corr had a personal nightmare, flapping at a cross which Paul Sheerin turned in for the first and going down in stages for the second which Paul Lawson struck from outside the box. Even then we weren't out of things and Willie Gibson missed a fabulous chance to pull a goal back on the stroke of half time when sent clean through on goal whilst Graham Weir also had a good chance early in the second half but when Corr dropped another cross for Sheerin to turn home again the game was up. Jim Thomson, booked earlier for an altercation with Jason Scotland, was sent off after fouling Martin Hardie despite the St Johnstone player pleading his case for him and Peter McDonald and Steven Milne added further goals near the end. McCall did not miss out his goalkeeper in his post match comments, slamming his performance and announcing that Allan Ferguson would be joining up with the club for trials again. The keeper had undeniably had a bad game but it didn't seem the obvious way to handle things. The relationship between manager and goalkeeper was probably never the same again.

In a separate development and perhaps more crucial than anything else that happened all season, Gordon Chisholm accepted an offer to join up as McCall's assistant manager. Whether by coincidence or not the change had an immediate effect with Queens at last winning their first game of the season. Palmerston was a happy place as second half substitute Andy Thomson's double, the second of which was a spectacular diving header reminiscent of his famous Wembley goal, gave us a 2-0 victory over Livingston. Colin Scott had returned in goal for the game. Further good news saw Airdrie lose at Dingwall and the gap to 9th return to just two points.

JT welcomes Chis

A win at last!

We therefore finished the month placed even worse than we started it, still two points adrift of Airdrie at the bottom but now a massive 8 points back from Ross County and Clyde who shared 7th and 8th spots.

Ewan Lithgow

Part Number:
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
CURRENT PART