Its the first visit of the season to St Mirren Park, or the Paisley 2021 Stadium if you prefer, on Saturday to take on Alex Raes St Mirren.
The Opposition
After a poor start last season, Ian Murray was eventually replaced in December by Alex Rae. The rest of the season was a huge improvement which saw the Buddies finish 6th in the table, level on points with ourselves.
Its come as quite a surprise, then, that the Paisley men have again started this season with a disappointing run of results. Two wins from their Betfred Cup group games wasnt enough to take them through to the 2nd round and they followed that up with just 2 points from their opening four league games, coming with draws against Morton and Ayr. They are through to the 4th round of the IRN-BRU cup but might have expected to come past Albion Rovers with a little more ease - in the end it took an extra time goal from Shankland to provide a 4-3 victory.
Shankland, on loan from Aberdeen, is one of nine summer recruits although the big striker also spent last season on loan with the Buddies. Also coming in on loan are Tom Walsh and Ryan Hardie, both from Rangers, who we faced last season when they lined up for Dumbarton and Raith, respectively.
Many of the Saints squad will be familiar to Queens fans - the likes of Ben Gordon and Scott Gallacher have faced Queens over the last few years and the, ever dangerous, Stephen Mallen - son of Queens legend of the same name - is still with the Saints, despite interest from elsewhere during the summer. The only two ex-players in the Saints squad are Kyle Hutton and Rocco Quinn. Hutton turned down Queens in the summer to join St Mirren while Quinn has spent 5 years with Ross County before making the move. Quinn, though, is just coming back from injury so it remains to be seen whether or not he'll feature against his old club on Saturday.
As you'd expect with so many new faces coming, a number of players left Paisley during the summer - 13 in total, including Shankland who has returned on loan and David Clarkson who was on loan in the latter half of last season but has now signed permanently. Amongst those, the two biggest holes, off the field as much as on it, have been left by Jim Goodwin, who joined high flying Alloa, and Stephen Thompson, who retired. Both club legends after their years of service and contribution to the 2013 League Cup win.
The Game
This Ladbrokes Championship match kicks off at 3pm on Saturday 10th September at St Mirren Park, Paisley. Live updates will be available on the website and on twitter and Facebook. We will also publish pictures through the day on our new Instagram Channel
We will be wearing our blue and white kit for this game.
The Fans
The away fans will be housed in the West Stand on Saturday, in the section nearest the North stand. St Mirren operate the same system as we do, so there is no cash accepted at the turnstyles. Away fans should purchase tickets from the ticket office at the back of the North Stand.
Prices for the West Stand are as follows :
Adult – £20
OAP (over 65) – £10
Student – £10
Child (Under 18) – £10
Child (Under 12) – £5
Unemployed – £10
Wheelchair User – £10
Carer – FREE
Please see St Mirrens website for details of concession ticket eligibility.
Parking within the stadium is limited but disabled fans can pre-book a space by contacting [email protected]. Supporters Buses should park on Clark Street (north side). Away fans travelling by car are advised to park in Clark Street, MacFarlane Street, McKean Street or Ferguslie Park Avenue.
St Mirrens website also provides directions to the ground
The Manager
"I have to pay credit to the players for the way they applied themselves last week against Stenhousemuir.
They got off to a good start with two early goals, but they never stopped the whole game, once they got to two or three, they could've quiet easily have taken their foot off the gas but they didn't. They showed the hunger and desire they have to win which is really pleasing.
As a group they had the right attitude so as their manager I'm delighted. They were desperate to win, with no disrespect to Stenhousemuir, people would be predicting a win, but the boys had the determination to win and they wanted more, there were some good finishes, some cool finishes and to score seven in any match is a real achievement. After the previous game in the League Cup against Stennie, they felt that they hadn't performed, so they had the mentality to go out and right a few wrongs as it were, they kept driving on and hopefully they'll get the credit they deserve.
Again it was a real team effort, the boys at the back gave the forwards the platform to go out and perform and we were rewarded with the goals that we scored and are unfortunate not to keep a clean-sheet.
We can't get carried away, we're about to embark on a tough run of fixtures so we need to work even harder. Winning games becomes a habit, a habit that we need to maintain.
This weekend we are off to Paisley to face a St Mirren side who its' fair to say probably haven't made the start to the season that they'd have hoped to, but we have to watch for that, as a wounded animal can be dangerous. It's only a couple of season since they were in the Premier League and when you look at the manager and the players they have within their squad, it gives you an idea that they want to get back up.
I believe that if we show the correct attitude and apply ourselves well in every game then we stand a good chance, with the run we're on, we can go into the game with confidence but we can't be over confident and we certainly won't under estimate them. To be honest I think it will be a real battle on Saturday, and I think it will be a game, where who ever wins the most individual battles will win the game.
The away support has been great this season and we hope that the fans turn out in their numbers again."
The Team
Grant Anderson took a knock to the ribs during the first half against Stenhousemuir, but he has recovered for that and hopefully we will have a full squad to choose from.
The Officials
Referee : Barry Cook
Assistant 1 : Jordan Stokoe
Assistant 2 : Chris McTiernan
The Stats
There have only been two league meetings between the two clubs at St Mirren Park, both last season and both home wins. The clubs had spent the previous 10 years in different divisions, so have only played a handful of cup games in that time.
The overall head to head in Paisley should give Buddies hope, as the home side has come out on top on 23 occasions, to only 7 away wins and 6 draws – you have to go back to 2003 to find the last Queens win in the city.
St Mirrens two defeats and two draws, in the league, this season is exactly the same as their results last August. They did, however, record their first league win in their first game of September last year … against Queens! Lets hope history doesn’t repeat itself.