THANKFULLY for Sean O'Connor, a sense of inevitability over the past seven months has doused the shock.
Twenty-seven is too early for any player to call time on his career but that's exactly the case for the Queen of the South striker, who will be forced into retirement at the end of this season, well short of his third decade. Queens' supporters shoul
d turn out in force for the visit of Dunfermline Athletic this afternoon, not only to witness the end of the club's home campaign but to bid an emotional goodbye to O'Connor. In two spells with the Dumfries outfit, he has made 179 appearances, but a troublesome knee has had the final say.
"It hasn't hit home yet and probably won't, in fact, until the letter telling me when to report for pre-season training does not arrive," O'Connor admitted yesterday. "That's when I'll realise that I am finished. I had not expected it to be this early, I had hoped to get to 30 at least. I had an operation in October which initially seemed to settle things down, but now I can't train or play."
Tributes have flooded in for O'Connor in the last week, since it became publicly apparent he has only two matches left as a player. Ian McCall, the manager who brought the forward to Palmerston to begin his second spell, has written O'Connor a letter expressing both best wishes for the future and in what professional regard he holds him in.
"He is comfortably the best striker of his kind in the First Division," McCall said of the target man. "For years to come, supporters of Queens will be talking about the (Stephen] Dobbie-O'Connor partnership. I brought him back to the club despite his knee injuries; he is a great lad who, if he had been afforded a level of fitness, would easily have gone onto bigger and better things."
Team-mate Dobbie is equally effusive, pointing to "a super lad and a great friend", adding: "He's so good in the air, a great target man and he has laid on a lot of chances for me."
Gordon Chisholm, the current Queens manager, complimented "a lovely big lad who all the fans, backroom staff at Palmerston and his fellow players think the world of."
Descriptions of O'Connor's injuries are hardly for the faint hearted. He has already undergone six episodes of surgery on his knee, a seventh will be required within the next month hopefully to rectify matters once and for all.
"I said that if it got to the stage where it was unbearable when I played, I would give up and that's what has happened," he said. "All the tissue and cartilage has basically been torn away from the knee, I have had bone on bone inside the knee which has been the painful part.
"Most football players end up having some form of arthritis; that will be the case with me, but it's almost certain to be worse than with others. I have accepted that."
O'Connor's association with Dumfries goes beyond merely two spells with the local football team and that is set to continue. He married Jennifer Houliston, the daughter of Queens' director Keith, six days after the club's appearance in last season's Scottish Cup final. His late grandfather-in-law, Billy Houliston, is the most celebrated players in Queens' history.
In the meantime, O'Connor will work alongside his wife in the family business, the Nith Hotel in the village of Glencaple. "I'm not sure how long Jennifer will let me keep the job for," the amiable O'Connor laughs. "I already help out as much as possible and will keep doing that, it has been a good way to keep my mind from the football. But if I want to talk about it, there are regulars who come into the bar who are Queens fans. They have always been great to me, the whole club has; I'll be back there to watch all the matches next season and know I'll always feel welcome."
Having not contemplated a life outside football for a decade, when he took an apprentice role with Caterpillar in his native Staffordshire, O'Connor admits to having little idea of where to go next. Coaching badges are a possibility as, perhaps, is another role at Queens.
"There is still a lot to think about and get my head round," he said. "It hasn't really hit home yet so I don't know exactly what I'll do next. Dumfries, though, has become home; I'll be staying around here."
Memories will prove sufficient for the time being. "In my first spell here, we won the Second Division and the Challenge Cup," O'Connor recalled. "And last season's Scottish Cup run was obviously incredible. I scored in the semi-final, but to play in the final, in front of my father-in-law, who had missed the semi through illness, was very special."
The full article contains 831 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
