EVEN the most ardent Queen of the South supporter would freely admit their club's 89-year history has not been one of great bombast and glories. Nevertheless, no one can deny it is a club that has always stood out.
When the classified results are read out every Saturday evening the club's extraordinary name shines out like a beacon, managing to seep into the consciousness of those with little interest in football. There is the story, heard on the radio a
few years ago, of a man in London's delight at his three-year-old daughter's first acknowledgement of the beautiful game. He was asking her who her favourite team was, striving to coax out a magical first utterance of the word 'Spurs' only to be greeted with the unexpected response from the toddler: "South of the Queen".
The magical moniker, which provides the club with the famous distinction of being the only senior British team with a mention in the Bible, goes back to 1857 when local poet David Dunbar was standing for election and described Dumfries as the Queen of the South. That would become the name agreed by a public meeting in March 1919 when it was decided to form a new football club in the town, although it was initially to be the slightly clumsy Queen of the South United. By the time they first took the field, however, the superfluous United had wisely been dropped.
A cursory glance at the club's list of honours reveals that, aside from the odd lower league championship and a Challenge Cup win in 2002, the subsequent 89 years have hardly been awash with silverware. When the trophy list has to be fleshed out with the likes of the 1936 Algiers Invitational Tournament and the 1922 Southern Counties Consolation Cup it is clear you are not dealing with a club soaked in success.
That is what makes today's groundbreaking appearance in the Scottish Cup final all the sweeter for the club's supporters and why few fans of other clubs in the country, with the exception of local rivals Stranraer, will begrudge the Palmerston club and its followers their big day out today.
If Queens have rarely troubled the engravers of major trophies then they have won many plaudits for their friendliness and the way the club is run. Prudent financial management has helped them maintain a home to be proud of in the shape of Palmerston Park, which is as good an example of a proper old-style football ground as remains in Scotland. When Ryan McCann famously scored from 80 yards against Dundee in this year's quarter-final it is hard to say what made more enjoyable viewing – the incredible goal itself or the sight of a packed terracing going increasingly wild as the ball inched its way towards the unattended net.
This season saw Queens, under the stewardship of 'fan first, chairman second' Davie Rae, take the gamble of going full time with new manager Gordon Chisholm at the helm and, much like McCann's sensational punt, it has paid off spectacularly.
That said, earlier in the season, when Queens were toiling near the bottom of the First Division, things did not look too rosy. Just before Christmas, local newspaper the Dumfries & Galloway Standard printed a stinging letter from a stalwart supporter at the end of his tether. Never in all his years of attending Palmerston had he seen such a poor Queens team, he wrote. The players had no fight, appeared out of shape, and Chisholm was tactically clueless, was the general gist of his cutting epistle. Presumably that same supporter will be in the Hampden stands this afternoon satisfied that his words had the desired effect as Queens have since embarked on a dream season culminating in today's showpiece.
It may seem harsh but the troubles experienced by near neighbours Gretna have made the success all the sweeter for the Queens diehards. For a club that hasn't had much to crow about, being the 'dominant' force in its own sleepy backwater was at least something, but for a while, with Gretna on a march fuelled by Brooks Mileson's millions, this was under threat. It is almost certain that many in the Queens support today were also at Hampden in 2006 as temporary fellow travellers on the Gretna bandwagon. Although the town of Dumfries itself remained largely loyal to Queens there was no doubting that the tanks were on the lawn.
The at-first-glance uninspiring motto of town and club A Lore Burn ("To the muddy stream") originates from the time of the great Border Wars when the people would retreat to nearby marsh areas to regroup when the town was attacked by English invaders. Now English-sounding interlopers, in the shape of Gretna's ambitious community programme, were laying siege at Palmerston's gates. Rather than retreat, however, they fought back and the Doonhamers' indefatigable captain Jim Thomson took the reins of the club's own local schools outreach project.
The population of Dumfries is just shy of 40,000 but a great deal more in the surrounding areas count the town, thanks to Cresswell Maternity Hospital, as their place of birth. More importantly, for 89 years Queens have been the warm and familiar fixture of south-west Scottish football, battling away through thin times and even thinner, achieving any minor triumphs that have come their way through hard work rather than the chequebook, and as a result attracting the kind of emotional attachment the artifice of Gretna could never compete with.
So this year's 'fairytale final', involving the club with that most lyrical of names, hailing from the town Robert Burns once called home, comes with something it lacked two years ago – poetic justice.
