Slipmat

And once you have negotiated the above hazard you will be seeing the players wearing shirts with "Building Craftsmen" written on the front. Sometimes at this club the comedy just writes itself.

Scott Dunn has signed for Stranraer. I hope he does well there, he looked like a decent prospect if a bit raw in the league cup games he played in for us last season.

The midfielder didn't look anything special and the guy in the above pic only got the last five minutes so difficult to say.

Sorry about the quality of the pic but this was the trialist centre forward No idea who the central midfielder was (and didn't get a screenshot).

Connelly came on for Murray 10 minutes ago, now the first trialist is on for Cochrane in central midfield and has immediately handballed to give away a pen which Raith have put away. Connelly then goes straight up the other end puts us back in front

McKechnie on at half-time for Paul McKay as we go to a back four.

1-0 - Paton penalty

Raith probably shading it, but Queens have been fairly untroubled. Quitongo has been the best man on the park with Todd & Paton putting in good shifts. Paton is virtually playing as a lone striker with Murray playing off him. Currie hasn't impressed.

Back 3 of the 2 McKays and Morrison, McKenna and Quitongo wing-backs.

Tonight's team: Currie, McKenna, Quitongo, D.McKay, P.McKay, Morrison, Cochrane, McGrory, Paton, Todd, Murray subs: Cowie, trialist, trialist, Connelly, McMahon, McKechnie, Muir, L.Gibson, Johnstone

East could be deployed as a "big" striker. I'd rather he wasn't though.

Continuing the trend of long posts... In a strange way the re-signing of several of last seasons players has rekindled some of my enthusiasm toward the club. The signs were good in the first couple of months of last season and we bore witness to a more watchable style of play than the previous season. Then our then main goal threat at the time, Roy, got injured and from that moment on AJ began to move players from position to position and tinkered with formations and didn't stop doing so until he was punted. Our forwards were basically extremely rank, but even they weren't helped when we set up with a 10 man defence in the Kilmarnock games for example. As I say though, Wullie's re-signing of players and adding new faces early on are big positives, partly because AJ's approach seemed to be to hold off, hold off and then assemble a grab-bag's worth of whoever is available without actually identifying a system he wanted to play or who to target to fill certain roles meaning that he messed about for nearly half a season and still didn't have a clue what his best team was. Keeping Cochrane and Connelly - two players who did manage to look like they have Championship quality - and adding Wilson are big positives for me, but several of the other retained players have shown in fits and starts that, if utilised correctly, they can perform. However, I also feel upbeat purely because we haven't ditched the entire squad as it is a sign that the players who are still here have some commitment to the club. The most infuriating thing about AJ's transfer policy was the revolving door here-for-a-season then fucking off / being told to f**k off aspect which gave little chance for fans to bond with players who I felt either saw Queens as nothing more than a stepping-stone to better things (Ayo / Shields) or were only here because no-one else would touch them (Buchanan / Ruben / Debayo / Joseph). I guess what I'm meaning is that having players around the place long-term who look like they care and feel like part of the furniture, even if they aren't the greatest of talents (you know, the George Cloy / Derek Lyle* / Dobbs * / Paul Burns / Nobby Clark /JTs of this world) just makes me feel more enthusiastic about the club in general and keener to watch them play. ETA - * clearly this pair were rather talented!

Housing Ukrainian refugees.

That's Rhys McCabe, Callum Fordyce, David Hutton, Josh Rae, Adam Frizzell & Salim Kouider-Aissa all at Airdrie now - 50% of their signed squad. Somebody at the Excelsior seems to have a bizarre fetish for ex-QOS players...

Another defender? That must bring closure to the Broadfoot rumour, Shirley? Always good to welcome a new signing, but let's hope a striker and a left winger are due in soon.

As much as we Queens fans generally are in agreement Rae is a good keeper (and to be fair he will probably be the best in this division), I don't think any of us believe he is as good as Josh Rae himself thinks he is. His farewell tweet said for him leaving was "a tough decision but one I had to make" which to me inferred that he saw his next move as an upward one, whether that may have been to a Championship side at worst or an English League side. It looks to me like the flood of offers he had expected to receive from bigger clubs than either ourselves or Airdrie didn't arrive after all. No disrespect to Airdrie, but moving down a division isn't really a career move that "has to be made".

To avoid calling Connelly Connolly maybe we should just refer to him as Leigh from now on

Ya beauty!!!! Use of the hyphen of course

Pleased with that. I think that will be the defence pretty much sorted now although I wouldn't mind some cover for the full back positions. Maybe right back will be Wullie and Paul McKay as back-up and left back Quitongo with East as cover? ETA now that I've said that we'll probably sign another central defender in 5 minutes!

A big clearout at Dalbeattie in the last couple of weeks since Jordan Williamson's appointment as manager with arguably their best two players (Currie & Dickinson) heading down the A75 to Gretna 2008 and 6 other regular starters defecting to Threave in the WOSL. Williamson is on record saying he plans to recruit mainly from the central belt, a policy which worked for him at St Cuthbert, so it will be interesting to see if it brings any improvement.

Very much in the meh category for me.

You've already got 5 ex-Queens players in your 10 man squad. Any more would just be being greedy.

^ There's that word again ^

IIRC Albion Rovers offered East an improved contract which was still on the table when he signed for us a week before the 20/21 season commenced, so he has form on holding out until the last minute before committing himself to a deal. I'm hoping that's the case again and he may still re-sign.

He runs about like a headless chicken, can't find teammates with a pass, is prone to making rash challenges and as qos1990 says he has a habit of running the ball out of play. I can recall him having one good game - the ICT one - in 34 appearances and his only goal was a beauty in a dead rubber league cup game. He does have tattoos and an alice-band though so at least looks the part. It certainly wasn't on the pitch.