Queens Park F.C.

Queens Park Football Club Queens Park FC

Queens Park Football Club are the oldest club in Scottish football, formed in 1867. They currently play at Hampden Park, south east Glasgow, which is also the home to the Scottish National Team and is one of 29 UEFA five-star stadia. The club is steeped with much history and tradition, and remains the only amateur club in the Scottish League. Queen's Park have won the Scottish Cup the third most amount of times, behind Celtic and Rangers.

History

Queen's Park, also known as "The Hoops", "The Spiders" and "The Braindeads" were founded on 9 July 1867, and are the oldest in Scottish Football. Queen's had soon developed its own code of rules for football. The club has historically resisted professionalism in the game; former professional players from other clubs were not allowed to play for Queen's Park and in 1890 the club refused to join the newly-formed Scottish League. The club also feared the League would dominate the game and cause the demise of smaller clubs. Six of the founder members of the League soon went out of existence. Queen's Park were however being left behind by the League, so in 1900 they took up the opportunity to enter. Special favours were granted by the League; not only were they the only amateur members, they were also protected from relegation to the Second Division until 1922.

The club has twice finished runner-up, both times to Blackburn Rovers, in the English national competition, the FA Cup. This was in 1884 and 1885. Such was the club's dominance in the early days of football that it did not concede a goal until January 16, 1875, 8 years after the club's formation.

Since World War II the club has been comparatively unsuccessful, rarely playing in the top division and failing to make a big impression when it did. Only since the 1990s have former professional players been allowed to play for the club, thus allowing many of the higher quality players to play for Queen's Park. Only under the influence of coach John McCormack did the club management allow players to come on loan from professional clubs. Although still amateur, the managers are now paid "honorariums". The Spiders' last trophy win came in 2000, when they won the 3rd Division Championship.

Queen's Park's stay in the SFL Second Division was all too short however and despite a 1-0 victory over Queen Of The South at Palmerston Park on the final day on the season they were relegated back to the basement division of Scottish Football for season 2001/02.

Famous Players

These include Alex Ferguson, current manager of Manchester United, Ronnie Simpson, later a Goalkeeper for Glasgow Celtic, Andy Roxburgh, ex Scotland Manager, Ian McCall current manager of Partick Thistle.

Rivals

Despite being located midway between Celtic and Rangers, Queen's Park's long resistance to professionalism has resulted in not having competed in the same division as them for long periods of time, and thus turning to rivals in lower divisions, such as Partick Thistle, Clyde and Albion Rovers.

Support

The Spiders' support is known for being vociferous, especially during away games, where the loyal support gets behind their team, win, lose or draw. For a relatively 'small' team, the fans take impressively strong numbers on their travels, usually more to local games. Some of the Spiders' support call themselves the "Irn Bru Firm" and currently share an enjoyable relationship with supporters of German club SG Wattenscheid 09.

This friendship resulted in Queen's spending their pre-season for season 2006/07 in the small German town where Queen's have now made many friends. The Wattenscheid lads and lassies were last over on January 27th, 2007 as Queen's won 2-1 away at Stenhousemuir.

Q.P.S.A.

The Queen's Park Supporters' Association was founded over fifty years ago to help bring together people that share a common interest in the Queen's Park Football Club. In recent years membership has increased steadily, with supporters now registered throughout the world. This rise has partly been due to the recent success of the club on-field, but primarily it has been attained through the dedicated work of association secretary, Keith "Beardie" McAllister.

As well as providing a channel to keep the poor souls (who are coming out of the woodwork now that they got promoted) informed of activities in and around Hampden, the association generates much needed income which in turn goes towards helping to maintain the various activities within the club such as donations toward the youth set-up, club website or acknowledging the service of past and present players.

Running a club shop on match days and providing supporters' buses to away grounds as well as organising social events, are only some examples of the work the Association carries out every season. The success of the Q.P.S.A is such that a special section for the younger supporters has been established.

Stadium

Hampden is one of the homes of football and celebrated its centenary on October 31, 2003. The stadium also houses the offices of the Scottish Football Association.

Hampden Park was the largest stadium in the world until 1950, when the Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro was completed. After the release of the Taylor Report in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster, among other football tragedies, Hampden Park was converted to an all-seater. The current capacity is around 52,500.

The crowd who came to see football matches at Hampden were renowned for creating the Hampden Roar. The noise created was said to terrify opposing teams who came to play there. In recent times the roar has said to be more muted, with the capacity of the stadium being reduced from its heyday.

Outside of Hampden Park sits a smaller, much lesser known ground with a bizarre and interesting history. This small part of footballing history is called Lesser Hampden.

The ground dates back to 1923 when Hampden's owners, Queen's Park F.C. were searching for a subsidiary venue that would house all of Queen's Park's teams except the first team (which would continue to play at Hampden). The club purchased a farm to the west of Hampden, this land was soon converted into Lesser Hampden. Lesser Hampden opened the next season, with a capacity of around 12,000. One of the most unique features of the stadium is the farmhouse, which the club retained to save money, this building originally served as the pavilion and dressing rooms for Lesser Hampden. This farmhouse, which dates back to the 19th century is believed by many football historians to be the oldest football building in the world.

World War II saw Lesser Hampden commandeered by the British Government to serve as a base for the Home Guard. The ground was returned to the club in 1945. Queen's Park found themselves relieved that the stadium wasn't converted back to its original state as a farm, a plan that was on the cards if the nation faced a food shortage.

In the 1980s Lesser Hampden nearly became home to the Queen's Park first team, as the government backed out of a promise to help fund the redevelopment of Hampden Park. Eventually the money did come, and Hampden was redeveloped. During the redevelopment Lesser Hampden did host league football as the Spiders were granted dispensation to host league matches at the National Stadium's sister ground.

In 2002 it was discovered that Lesser Hampden was tainted with chromium, this was cleaned up at a cost of around £40,000. A steep price for a side the size of Queen's Park.

Trivia

Queen's Park have won the Scottish Cup ten times. Only local rivals Rangers F.C. and Celtic F.C. have won more cups.

During the inaugural meeting, debate raged over the club's name. Proposals included: 'The Celts'; 'The Northern' and 'Morayshire'. Perhaps such choice of names suggest a Highland influence within the new club. After much deliberation, 'Queen's Park' was adopted and carried, but only by a majority of one vote.

The Scotland team at the first official football international consisted entirely of players from Queen's Park FC. This match between Scotland and England was the brainchild of C. W. Alcock and took place in Glasgow on November 30, 1872. During the match the Scottish players wore their club jerseys, which were dark blue, and this has remained the first-choice kit for the Scotland national team to this day. Contrary to the club's official website, this match was played under the Football Association rules (which had been first written in 1863).

In the early days of England's FA Cup, Scottish clubs were often invited to compete. As a result, Queen's Park twice finished runners-up in this competition.

After Queen's Park's tour of Ireland in 1879, it produced so much excitement that the first Irish club, Cliftonville, was founded.

At Lesser Hampden the old farmhouse used for dressing rooms for the Queen's Park reserves and youth had originally been earmarked for demolition, but this was never carried out, reputedly making it the oldest football related building in existence.

Queen's Park has the distinction of being the first Scottish club to feature on television. The date was March 1951, when they played a televised friendly match against the famous London amateur side, Walthamstow Avenue F.C. The Spiders won the game 2-0, courtesy of a Derek Grierson double.

james73	Latest page update: made by james73 , Mar 7 2009, 9:32 PM EST (about this update About This Update Edited by james73 view changes - complete history)
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