Queens were finally able to welcome Annan Athletic to a rainswept Palmerston Park tonight for a pre-season friendly, postponed after an outbreak of Covid-19 in their squad last week. Annan were given the all clear by the SFA to resume playing this week and stepped in to replace a planned friendly away from home that had to be cancelled.

Queens lined up:
1 Jack Leighfield, 2 Wullie Gibson, 3 Trialist, 4 Ayo Obileye, 5 Gregor Buchanan, 6 Rhys McCabe, 7 Harry Robinson, 8 Dan Pybus, 9 Tommy Goss, 10 Aidan Fitzpatrick, 11 Connor Shields.

The match was competitive from the start and although Queens had the best of the first half in terms of possession, neither goalkeeper was troubled too much as we reached the interval scoreless. The deadlock was broken just before the hour mark when a cross in from the left caused mayhem in the Annan box and Tommy Goss arrived to plant the loose ball into the net past a stranded Alex Mitchell. The lead was doubled within 5 minutes. A deep ball found Connor Shields arriving in the box and his header back across goal was blocked by the arm of an Annan defender. Penalty. Shields took it himself and struck it like a rocket into the top left corner. Our visitors though did not give up the fight and, after a few changes had been made, with Robinson, Fitzpatrick and Shields all replaced by Trialists, Annan pulled a goal back with about 10 minutes left. A corner kick from the left side was headed home from fairly close range. They never came close to grabbing an equaliser however and the match finished 2-1.

Our next scheduled friendly is away to Airdrie on Saturday at 2pm although of course at present times such games can end up changed at short notice. We believe Diamonds TV are planning to provide a live stream of the friendly on Saturday for a small charge.