The Score Doesn’t Matter

Everything changed when I began taking my son to Saturday morning football sessions at Hayes Lane. While the kids ran around on the astroturf, I had little better to do than lounge on the terraces and soak in the stadium’s ambience. Those visits increasingly sparked something in me. I was revisiting memories of going to Queen of the South games with my dad when I was a boy.

Queens, like me, come from Dumfries, a smallish town in the South West of Scotland (and a great wee town it is, too). The club was formed in 1919 after a few amateur sides combined to have a right good go at the professional leagues. The name Queen of the South was chosen by a public vote. It’s a phrase attributed to David Dunbar, a local poet who stood for Parliament in 1857. In one of his addresses, he called Dumfries ‘Queen of the South’. The locals rather liked that.

The club was formed with ambitious intent, but I think it would be fair to describe Queens as underachievers. Our day in the sun was the Scottish Cup final in 2008, where our boys ran Rangers close in a 3-2 loss. An incredible European adventure followed in the UEFA Cup. Yes, we were knocked out in the first round, but travelling to Denmark to face Nordsjælland was an unforgettable experience.