The Queen of the South thread

[Senior_Coconut]

Gordon Chisholm had such a special feeling for Dundee that he voted to have us liquidated.
  

So he did get some decisions correct.

[qos_75]

54 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I do agree however that I have never really understood the bad press Gordon Chisholm (& Jim McIntyre for that matter) get from our fans.

Chisholm will and should have his place in a legendary team that took us to our only ever Scottish Cup final and were a bit unlucky on the day.

The season after he had a team that should have challenged for the title. I am not suggesting we should have won it but we should have been a lot closer than what we were.  

Kind of similar to McCall’s last season. We should have put up a bigger challenge too.

McIntyre, inherited a great team and as discussed earlier. His team were 8th at the start of December. He did secure a play off place but with the team he had we should have been challenging for the title. Had Johnston remained I think we would have. Continuity and all that. 

Taking account of all of the above I think that is why Chisholm and McIntyre are not wholly revered.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2017 by qos_75

[Skyline Drifter]

4 minutes ago, qos_75 said:

McIntyre, inherited a great team and as discussed earlier. His team were 8th at the start of December. He did secure a play off place but with the team he had we should have been challenging for the title. Had Johnston remained I think we would have. Continuity and all that. 

There is some merit in your comments about Chisholm maybe but I dont agree with that about McIntyre. To expect that team to have challenged for the title is fanciful, especially after the departure of Nicky Clark and Lee Robinson. It was probably the 4th best squad in the division and finished 4th, never really matching the top three in head to heads either. It didnt exactly hit the ground running but given the change of management on the eve of the season and the loss of two crucial players that was not unreasonable. Perhaps Johnston would have done better, the squad certainly wouldnt have had to deal with a management change, but thats hardly something that was McIntyre's fault and there is no real basis to suggest the finishing position would have been any better.

People held the issues of Dowie, Russell, McShane and to an extent Mitchell against him as well as Antell but to be honest he was proven correct about the first four and whilst Antell clearly didn't work the prospect of Grant Adam who Johnston had more or less been left with after Robinson decided to go to Sweden isn't really more attractive. At least in Zander Clark he addressed the issue soon enough. He left a squad that James Fowler was able to go toe to toe with Rangers and Hibs that season.

McIntyre did an excellent job with us and, from the outside at least, a decent one at Ross County. I think Dundee United would be wise to appoint him but it will be interesting to see what way they go.

[palmy_cammy]

McIntyre had us punching our weight. Nothing more, nothing less. He then jumped ship at the first opportunity. I have no ill feeling towards him, but I don’t have a particular fondness for him either. His time with us will go down as a small aside in our history.

Chisholm was a clueless diddy, and there is no re-writing of history that will change that.

[Brother Grimm]

Chisholm should have been instantly sacked for leaving Dobbie on the bench in Europe! 

Not withstanding that he shouldn’t have survived the poor run of form at the back end of 2008, only doing so as Davie Rae had spunked the Scottish Cup money on Chisholm’s players and didn’t know how to get out of it. 

[Hawk]

I liked Gus as a manager, not.

[qos_75]

As SD and Cammy point out McIntyre eventually had us punching our weight. However it took us until the January to start to do so. For me we should have been flying out of the blocks and finished higher.   That is why, in my opinion at least,  McIntyre was not particularly loved. 

Don’t get me wrong he had a great second half of the season but the first half was honking.  

[Monkey Tennis]

57 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

 

People held the issues of Dowie, Russell, McShane and to an extent Mitchell against him as well as Antell but to be honest he was proven correct about the first four and whilst Antell clearly didn't work the prospect of Grant Adam who Johnston had more or less been left with after Robinson decided to go to Sweden isn't really more attractive. 

 

Dowie wound up as a decent player for us, but he wasn't necessary at the time and only became so when one of the guys he at times replaced early on, got back in and earned a big move. 

Russell did well for us too, but I don't think the decision to not play him up front as was initially envisaged, was ever fully proven to be correct. 

Grant Adam might not have been brilliant had he played, but I promise you he'd have been better than Antell.  That was the biggest thing he had to sort in the squad and McIntyre could not conceivably have got it more wrong.

[Sloop John B]

I don't like using a cup run as the basis of judging a manager seeing as there is a very high level of good fortune involved compared to 36 games a season . If Chisholm wasn't following 2 straight seasons of struggle fro his two predecessors and  a culture of very low expectations  he would be crucified for finishing 5th  in 2008/09 (joint on points 8th place and 5 off the playoff) with extra money from the previous cup run and prime Dobbie if he did that now.  David Rae's total loyalty to him now looking back is baffling, you give him a budget to be title challenger and yet you keep him on despite him failing miserably to do so, no wonder we almost went under.

[Bluenortherner]

Does anyone with stats have the Queens lineup in our 2-0 win over Chesterfield?

[QoS_1919]

9 hours ago, 19QOS19 said:

 

 

Their current position would suggest it's not going too well for them

 

 

It's not going good for us but there is some youth players coming through which is the only thing to be happy about  

[louisxiv]

11 hours ago, Hawk said:

I liked Gus as a manager, not.

Gus was the worst. 

[QOS1919]

12 hours ago, Bluenortherner said:

Does anyone with stats have the Queens lineup in our 2-0 win over Chesterfield?

QOS v Chesterfield at Palmerston in season 1971/72, it was the 27th October and Queens won the match 2-0 infront of a 1200 crowd. The team was Ball, Connell, Totten, Milligan, Scott, McChesney, Black, Law, Anderson, Evans and Tam Bryce (Mk1), Substitute was Gilmour.

[BIGdavieT]

Gus was the worst. 

In fairness did Gus not have a much lower budget than anyone else?

[Monkey Tennis]

34 minutes ago, BIGdavieT said:

 

In fairness did Gus not have a much lower budget than anyone else?

 

There was cost cutting in comparison to the budget Chisholm had enjoyed.  That was already underway under Brannigan though and I don't think Gus' successors have necessarily had much more money since.

Others will know better than me, but in the scheme of most Queens managers over the last fifteen years or so, I'm not sure that Gus was especially impoverished.

[19QOS19]

In fairness did Gus not have a much lower budget than anyone else?

He did which was fair enough. That wasn't a big enough reason to excuse his disgustingly negative tactics every single game. Simmons and McLaughlin in the middle still gives me shivers. The last game of the season when AJ took charge showed we had potential in that squad to at least have a go at teams. We were beaten that day but it was the first game of that season I recalled any fight.

Gus's Plan B when we (inevitably) went behind was to resort to Plan A: sit in and hold on to what we have. I always thought relegation would be an upsetting experience but the only emotion I had was anger and relief that he would be gone the season after and so would the shite players he had preferred as well. The last game of a relegation campaign shouldn't make you positive about the next season but that's exactly what AJ's first game provided for me.

[Hawk]

I give you Tam Brighton!

[Sloop John B]

I think he had a tough gig that he did very badly at,  IIRC he seemed to come in quite late on and had an upwards task convincing people to come on board with less money and the reputation of the club at a very low point. But as a manager with a reputation for signing diamonds in the rough but oh boy he had a shocker. In that season, Robinson and Higgins (At CB) are the only two players that made a positive contribution whilst Nicky Clark would prove his worth the season after,  then you have the permanently crippled Kevin Smith and Marc McCusker,  old wrecks like Mark Campbell, Alan Reid and Tam Brighton and actual dross such as Stephen Simmons and Scott McLaughlin. He had a window to fix the lack of goals and he signs Sam Parkin, who wasn't a dreadful footballer by any stretch, but in the previous 6 seasons had scored 23 goals in 148 games so it was asking a lot of him to carry a team from the drop and despite him being joint league top scorer with 6. Additionally he had a chance to fix a defence that really just needed a left back but he signed John Potter from the glue factory on a free. 

Somehow despite the low talent level of the team we seemed to be somewhat competitive in a lot of games, and the way results went safety never seemed totally out of reach. It was the ridiculous number  of late goals that was just horrible, a quick count on wiki shows that we conceded 28 out of 64 goals in the last 15 minutes, which a chunk of that comes down to a lack of leadership, poor tactics and fitness.  He also never really trusted any of the younger players that turned into ballers the next season except out of necessity. 

I don't think he's necessarily a bad manager, look at his work at St Mirren and Queens Park, but circumstance and his own failings contributed to a shambles. He was another one like Chisholm who never got his jotters when he  really should have  (Though we probably couldn't afford to sack him). Didn't we offer him a new deal before he walked? 

 

[Skyline Drifter]

51 minutes ago, Sloop John B said:

I think he had a tough gig that he did very badly at,  IIRC he seemed to come in quite late on and had an upwards task convincing people to come on board with less money and the reputation of the club at a very low point. But as a manager with a reputation for signing diamonds in the rough but oh boy he had a shocker. In that season, Robinson and Higgins (At CB) are the only two players that made a positive contribution whilst Nicky Clark would prove his worth the season after,  then you have the permanently crippled Kevin Smith and Marc McCusker,  old wrecks like Mark Campbell, Alan Reid and Tam Brighton and actual dross such as Stephen Simmons and Scott McLaughlin. He had a window to fix the lack of goals and he signs Sam Parkin, who wasn't a dreadful footballer by any stretch, but in the previous 6 seasons had scored 23 goals in 148 games so it was asking a lot of him to carry a team from the drop and despite him being joint league top scorer with 6. Additionally he had a chance to fix a defence that really just needed a left back but he signed John Potter from the glue factory on a free. 

Somehow despite the low talent level of the team we seemed to be somewhat competitive in a lot of games, and the way results went safety never seemed totally out of reach. It was the ridiculous number  of late goals that was just horrible, a quick count on wiki shows that we conceded 28 out of 64 goals in the last 15 minutes, which a chunk of that comes down to a lack of leadership, poor tactics and fitness.  He also never really trusted any of the younger players that turned into ballers the next season except out of necessity. 

I don't think he's necessarily a bad manager, look at his work at St Mirren and Queens Park, but circumstance and his own failings contributed to a shambles. He was another one like Chisholm who never got his jotters when he  really should have  (Though we probably couldn't afford to sack him). Didn't we offer him a new deal before he walked? 

 

Think thats largely fair.

Gus did some good things at the club but they were mostly off the pitch. Robinson, Higgins and eventually Clark were good signings. Also the retention of McKenna and Johnston and bringing Johnston into the coaching setup and introducing the likes of Reilly and Holt to the first team (though possibly he should have trusted them more). He inherited a car crash but failed in the primary aim of keeping us up.

In the longer term it worked out ok and its not like Johnston had to make wholesale changes to the squad to set records the next season. He added Durnan, Mitchell, Gibson, Young and Lyle pretty much (and later Burns). The relegated Gus side still included Robinson, Higgins, McGuffie, McKenna, Carmichael, Johnston, and to an extent Reilly and Clark from the all conquering Johnston side. Plus he still had Craig Reid. It should have done better.

[KingfaetheSooth]

8 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Think thats largely fair.

Gus did some good things at the club but they were mostly off the pitch. Robinson, Higgins and eventually Clark were good signings. Also the retention of McKenna and Johnston and bringing Johnston into the coaching setup and introducing the likes of Reilly and Holt to the first team (though possibly he should have trusted them more). He inherited a car crash but failed in the primary aim of keeping us up.

In the longer term it worked out ok and its not like Johnston had to make wholesale changes to the squad to set records the next season. He added Durnan, Mitchell, Gibson, Young and Lyle pretty much (and later Burns). The relegated Gus side still included Robinson, Higgins, McGuffie, McKenna, Carmichael, Johnston, and to an extent Reilly and Clark from the all conquering Johnston side. Plus he still had Craig Reid. It should have done better.

As a general point, the majority of fans  don't realise the good work that some managers do off the pitch, things like building the club infrastructure, youth development, training improvements, training ground improvments, player nutrition, sports science, community stuff etc. etc.  

The focus is only on their achievement with results on the pitch.  Too many managers, as an example, don't trust young players as they are judged almost exclusively on results and therefore  don't have the confidence in playing promising kids. Mini rant over, as you were.