Wood Carving Unveiling On Saturday at 1pm we will be unveiling a wood carving statue of three club legends. The statue will be located just outside the entrance to the QoS Arena and will honour the achievements of club legends, Allan Ball, Billy Houliston and Stephen Dobbie. Allan Ball played more games for Queen of the South than any other player in the club’s history. In a career at QoS lasting from the early 60s to the early 80s, Ball played in goal for QoS’ first team on 819 occasions (731 games were league and cup, the rest were challenge games and testimonials). As well as being a key member of the promotion-winning team of 1981, 'Bally' also enjoyed many great personal moments in a career with QoS that continued well beyond the day he hung up his gloves. He served as an Honorary Director of the club from December 2001 right up to his death in July 2018. Billy Houliston is the only Queen of the South player to have gained full international recognition with Scotland. As well as his three full caps he was capped nine times in all at different levels for Scotland scoring eight goals. A rampaging centre forward, Houliston was never on a losing international side. Billy went on to become a director of the club in 1957 and served up to 1994, spending almost 37 years on the Board, including a spell as Chairman in the early 1960's. His son Keith, would also go on to serve the club as both a player and a Director. Stephen Dobbie is synonymous with the modern era of Queen of the South. First joining the club in January 2007, he scored 55 goals in his first two and a half years before his exploits earned a move to English Championship side Swansea City. Over the next 9 years he four times reached the English Championship playoff final, earning promotion with three different clubs (Blackpool, Swansea City and Crystal Palace) and playing in the English Premiership. Fulfilling a vow he made on his departure in 2009, 'Dobs' returned to the club in 2016 to finish his playing career here. Players making such promises is not that unusual, actually doing so is much rarer. He was appointed Club Captain by Gary Naysmith in 2018. In just over 3 years he has added a further 99 club goals to his total and stands as the 2nd highest scorer in club history with 154. He also broke a club single season scoring record which had stood for over 80 years when, at the age of 36, he struck 43 times last season, and did so despite missing almost two months of the season with hamstring injuries! link
Dobbie Night Cancelled With regret, due to poor advance ticket sales, Saturday evening's planned Question and Answer event with Stephen Dobbie, Allan Johnston and Sandy Clark has had to be cancelled. The club apologises to those supporters who had already purchased tickets for the evening. If those supporters would like to return their tickets to the Club Shop during opening hours, a full refund will of course be given. We apologise for any inconvenience. link
Charlie Brown Funeral Arrangements Further to previous news of Charlie's passing, we can now confirm the funeral will take place at Jardine's Chapel of Rest on Tuesday 22nd October at 11am. link
Eddie Warwick Leaves The Club We are disappointed to confirm that 1st Team Coach and Reserves Manager Eddie Warwick has now left the club with today being his last day. He took the Reserves for the final time on Monday in their 2-2 draw at Morton (thanks to goals from Gary Oliver and Darren Lyon). Eddie is moving on to take up a full time coaching position in China with a global group who run performance centres in the Far East. Eddie has progressed through the coaching ranks at Queens since joining as an assistant to Stuart Rome in 2011 and became a very valuable member of staff, also involved in the Community and Schools programmes and running of the facilities at the Arena, KGV and Lochmaben. He will certainly be missed. We wish him well in his new role and hope he will return to visit when back in the UK. We hope to be in a position to confirm his replacement shortly. link
Reading Challenge With the school holidays beginning it is a good time to start our 4-4-2 reading challenge. The 4-4-2 challenge is being run by the SPFL Trust in conjunction with clubs across Scotland to encourage children to get along to their local library. In return for borrowing and reading books they will collect stamps which can then be exchanged for free or discounted tickets. Kids need to read four books to complete a card which they can take to the club ticket office and exchange for a free child ticket and a discounted adult ticket for their achievement. So far we have 25 schools from across the region signed up for the challenge. All the participating schools have reward cards for the children to start collecting. But if your school isn’t taking part, kids can still take part, they just need to pick up a collectors card from any public library. link
Charlie Brown Everyone at the club was saddened to hear of the death yesterday morning at the age of 95 of Charlie Brown, who played centre forward for the club between 1948 and 1953. Signed from LMS Rovers, he made 49 appearances and scored 19 goals for the club before departing for Tarff Rovers. Condolences to his family and friends. Funeral arrangements will be passed on when known. link
Youth Reports & Fixtures Unfortunately, after travelling all the way to Kinross, the u18's match with Elgin City was postponed due to the weather. The u16's clash between the same two clubs did go ahead at Kinross as it was on the 3G pitch. Queens ran out winners by 3-1, dominating throughout. Scorers were Simpson, Picken and Hunter. Fixtures for Sunday 13th October: QoS 16's v Airdrieonians 16's, 11am, Palmerston Park QoS 18's v Airdrieonians 18's, 1pm, Palmerston Park link
Reserves Pick Up Point at Morton The Reserves picked up their first point of the League season yesterday with a 2-2 draw away to Greenock Morton. Cameron Salkeld gave the home side a 3rd minute lead which was then doubled on the half hour mark by Kalvin Orsi. However, a comeback saw Gary Oliver (38) and Darren Lyon (40) strike back and neither side could find a second half winner. Callum Semple was back in action in the game which also saw the entire bench from Saturday's win at Partick Thistle start the game. link