A League Victory - At Last! (2016)

(first published in the match programme for St. Mirren v Dundee United, 6^th December 2025)

St. Mirren paid a midweek visit to Palmerston Park, Dumfries on 6^th December 2016 to face Queen of the South in the Championship, with the Buddies sitting bottom of the table and still searching for their first League victory of the season.

In the period since the sides' previous meeting - a 3-1 victory for the Doonhamers at Paisley in September - Saints had parted company with Manager Alex Rae and had appointed Jack Ross in his place. However, apart from progress to the semi-final of the IRN BRU Cup and continued participation in the Scottish Cup, the Buddies' League position had not improved.

Queen of the South, like Saints, had also reached the penultimate stage of the IRN BRU Cup, but after being early leaders in the Championship race, they were now on a six-match losing run and had been dumped out of the Scottish Cup by Albion Rovers at the end of November.

Issue 13 of the Queen of the South programme for the match against St. Mirren was a neat A5-sized full colour publication of 36 heavy-gauge glossy pages. The front cover featured an artistic illustration of a home player above the match information and sponsorship details.

After the team line-ups and list of Club Officials on page two, the opposite page gave newly-appointed Queens boss Gary Naysmith his first opportunity to address the fans. Having watched his new charges on the Saturday, he identified a lack of confidence as the immediate problem. He welcomed St. Mirren and hoped that they would overcome their own testing period - after this evening's match, of course!

A two-page "Welcome to St. Mirren" reviewed their season so far and included pen pictures of the playing staff. This was followed by double page pieces on the Doonhamers' new boss and on Daniel Carmichael, who was returning to the Club after a season with Hibernian.

"Queens U-20 Spotlight" reviewed the development side's 2-1 victory over Clyde that had taken them to the top of the Development League West. "Round Up" then devoted two pages of text and photos to the first team's recent matches against Albion Rovers in the Scottish Cup and Dumbarton in the Championship, both of which had ended with 2-1 defeats.

The centre page spread displayed Queens' fixtures, results and team line-ups for the season to date. Uniquely amongst statistics pages of a similar layout, it also listed the referees for each match and a breakdown of attendances between home and away fans. Each player and squad number was listed along the top of the page and their appearance in the starting XI, or as a used or unused sub, was denoted by colour coding in the grid below.

A trio of interesting archive articles included "The Forgotten Fixtures", recalling games against Clyde in 1965 and Coventry City in 1953, "Where Are They Now", which focussed on former player Tommy Bryce and lastly "Jousting With Giants - Part 11" which focussed on the 1933/34 season.

"Player Sponsors", "Palmerston Personnel", "Supporter's Corner" and photos of recent awards, together with fourteen pages of adverts brought the issue to a close. It is quite an easy programme to find nowadays at its cover price of £2.50.

On a wet and miserable winter evening, the match unsurprisingly attracted Queens' smallest crowd of the season totalling just 1,147, of which a vociferous 169 had travelled from Paisley.

Slightly against the run of play, the home side made the breakthrough after 17 minutes. Grant Anderson's shot could only be parried by Saints' goalkeeper Scott Gallacher and Stephen Dobbie was on hand to prod home the rebound. However, the lead lasted only three minutes as Kyle Magennis registered his first senior goal when he advanced unchallenged to fire an unstoppable 20-yard drive past Lee Robinson.

St. Mirren pressed well but lacked the final product and three minutes before the interval they were punished as Queens regained the lead. Mark Millar's throw was flicked on by Derek Lyle into the path of Dobbie and he slipped the ball low past Gallacher for his second of the game.

Twelve minutes into the second period, St. Mirren equalised again when Stevie Mallan's free kick from the right into the box was only half cleared. When the ball fell to Ben Gordon, his drive took a huge deflection and flew past Robinson.

Both sides then pushed for the winner, with Saints exerting most of the pressure and testing home goalie Robinson on several occasions. Three minutes into stoppage time, the pressure paid off when Mallan recycled the ball after a failed Saints corner. His curling shot from about 22 yards out found the bottom corner of the net, clipping the inside of the post on its way in. The fight was now on to remain in the Championship.