Queen of the South

Queen of the South
	Queen of the South
Basic data
Surname	Queen of the South Football Club
Seat	Dumfries , Scotland
founding	1919
president	Billy Hewitson
Website	qosfc.com
First soccer team
Head coach	Gary Naysmith
Venue	Palmerston Park
Places	6,412
league	Scottish Championship
2019/20	9th place, Scottish Championship
home	Away

Queen of the South (officially: Queen of the South Football Club ) - also called The Doonhamers - is a Scottish football club from Dumfries , located in Dumfries and Galloway . The club plays in the Scottish Championship , the second highest division in Scotland. In 2008/09 the club played in the UEFA Cup for the first time .

Club history

The beginnings

Queen of the South was founded at a public meeting on March 21, 1919. The club was merged from three other clubs: Dumfries FC, 5th Kings Own Scottish Borderers Football Team and a works team from the local car manufacturer Arrol-Johnston Car Company Ltd. The name Queen of the South comes from a Scottish poet (David Dunbar), who once gave the city of Dumfries the nickname Queen of the South . The existing Palmerston Park was chosen as the home ground. The club's coat of arms adorns the banner with the slogan "A Lore Burne", which can also be found in the city coat of arms.

After three training games, the young club's first official game took place on August 16, 1919.

At first you only played regionally before you were allowed to join the Scottish League in 1923/24 . Two applications had previously been rejected. You started in the newly created 3rd division .

In the 1931/32 season, two club records that are still valid today were set. Center forward Jimmy Rutherford scored 41 goals for Queen that season . In addition, the club achieved the highest victory in the club's history with an 11-1 victory, in the Scottish Cup against FC Stranraer . Ten years after joining the league, in 1933 they were in the highest league in Scotland.

Successful times

In the very first game in the new division they met Celtic Glasgow and beat them so impressively that even Celtic couldn't help but congratulate Queen of the South on this victory in their stadium booklet the following week.

In a total of 18 clashes against Celtic in Palmerston Park you won ten times and drew three times. The victory wasn't just a snapshot of the climber. The whole season was designed successfully, so that at the end of the season we could finish fourth. To date, this success has never been repeated. Until 1959, with one exception, they always played in Scotland's first division.

Between 1938 and 1963 they played in the Scottish Cup a total of 18 times, but only twice made it past the quarter-finals into the semi-finals. The first time in 1949/50, when they failed at the Glasgow Rangers . However, the success was overshadowed by relegation to the 2nd division. The direct resurgence in 1950/51 was followed by reaching the Scottish League Cup semi-finals.

They remained in the first division until 1959, before being promoted again in 1962. The 1963/64 season was the last season of Queen of the South in the Scottish House of Lords to this day. 1960/61 the Doonhamers reached the semi-finals of the League Cup again.

The Harkness era

The main stand in Palmerston Park, 2005

In 1967, Willie Harkness became President of Queen of the South until he resigned in 1994. These years went down in the club's history as the Harkness era, not least because the low point in the club's history was reached under his presidency. The Queen has consistently spent her in the lower leagues of Scotland. The absolute low point was a 13th place 1979/80 in the third and at the time the lowest division of Scotland. 1985/86 you could get promoted back to the 2nd division, but where you kept the class more bad than right.

Reconstruction and revival

Norman Blount became the new president. Things seemed to be turning out for the better under him. The first thing to do is to renovate the stadium by building a new grandstand. The Glasgow Rangers arrived for a friendly in 1995. In 1994, Andy Thomson, an important young player, was sold to Southend United for a record £ 250,000 . Andy Thomson was the 1994 Second Division Player of the Year and top scorer.

In 2003 and 2004 the season was finished fifth in the second division, and in 2005 even with a fourth place. The relegation was escaped on the last day of the game in 2006, when they were able to get 23 points from 12 games and on the last day of play with a 1-1 draw against Brechin City could still hold the class. The following year the club fared similarly, before another 4th place jumped out in 2007/08.

On the way to the cup final

The scoreboard during the semifinals

Via Peterhead, Linlithgow Rose and Greenock Morton it went to the quarter-finals of the national cup. There Queen of the South met their league rivals FC Dundee. It was surprisingly clear that they were defeated 2-0 and they reached the semi-finals, which was to be a memorable game in the history of the Scottish Cup. The semi-finals took place on April 12, 2008 in Hampden Park on neutral ground against FC Aberdeen. Around 10,000 fans traveled to Glasgow to watch the game. QotS took the lead through Tosh in the 22nd minute before Aberdeen equalized in the 36th. In the 41st minute, the Doonhammers ' top scorer Stephen Dobbie was injured. For him, Stewart came into play. After half-time, the decision was made within eleven minutes. There were five goals. Every time QotS took the lead and Aberdeen was always able to equalize. But after the 4: 3 in the 60th minute, by the substitute Stewart, Aberdeen did not come back. After 94 minutes, the game was over and QotS was in the final of the Scottish Cup for the first time in the club's 89-year history. The opponent was none other than the Glasgow Rangers . Despite a 2-0 half-time lead by the Rangers, the Queen fought their way up and managed to equalize to 2-2 in the 53rd minute of the game. However, the big favorite was able to take the lead again in the 72nd minute of the game and defended this 3-2 lead until the end of the game.

date	round	Match pairing	Queens gates	spectator
11/24/2007	Three	Peterhead FC 0-5 Queen of the South	Dobbie (27th, 89th), O'Connor (44th, 57th), Burns (90th)	695
01/12/2008	Four	Queen of the South - Linlithgow Rose 4-0	Dobbie (16th), Thomson (22nd), O'Connor (40th), McArthur (72nd, own goal)	3,062
02/02/2008	five	Greenock Morton - Queen of the South 0-2	O'Connor (46th), Stewart (87th)	3,506
03/08/2008	six	Queen of the South 2-0 Dundee FC	Dobbie (51st), McCann (90th)	6,278
04/12/2008	Semifinals	Queen of the South - FC Aberdeen 4: 3	Tosh (22nd), Burns (49th), O'Connor (56th), Stewart (60th)	24.008
05/24/2008	final	Queen of the South - Glasgow Rangers 2-3	Tosh (50.), Thomson (53.)	48,821

By reaching the final, QotS was already qualified for the UEFA Cup , as the Glasgow Rangers had a Champions League place. Since the Palmerston Park is only approved for 3,500 spectators according to UEFA , they moved to the 10,000-seat Excelsior Stadium by Airdrie United . In the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup, QotS faced Danish representatives FC Nordsjælland , but lost 2-1 in both games and was eliminated from the competition.

As the winner of the third division, the club rose in the 2012/13 season in the Scottish Championship, the second division. With fourth place in each of the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons, QotS qualified for the promotion games to the Premier League, but failed initially to Falkirk (2: 1/1: 3 a.d.) and a year later to the Glasgow Rangers (1: 1/1: 2).