Queens Park have today (November 1st) announced that their home fixture with ICT eleven days from now on November 12th will be moved from a 3pm kick-off to 5.30pm.
To the uninitiated this may seem a strange thing for a club to do at such short notice. But the Spiders operate in strange ways.
They’re currently squatting at Stenhousemuir’s Ochilview Park while they wait for Lesser Hampden to be renovated to allow them to play at their new home, having been shunted out of the National Stadium. However, when Lesser Hampden will actually be ready is anybody’s guess. The club are not providing much to go on in terms of updates, and the popular wisdom is that Queens Park fans shouldn’t be getting their hopes up for a return to Glasgow any time soon.
As for the ICT fixture, the issue becomes even sillier. When Queens Park announced they were playing at Ochilview this season, it escaped many people’s notice that they would not be Stenhousemuir’s only tenants. Syngenta FC of the East of Scotland League already had their own agreement in place with Stenhousemuir to use the ground, and they seem to take precedence over the Spiders.
The result of this is that Queens Park need to rely on good will or excellent negotiating to use the stadium any time Syngenta are scheduled to play there. A ridiculous situation for a club currently in the hunt for promotion to the Scottish Premiership.
On November 12th Syngenta have a home game, so Queens Park need to get creative for their scheduled game with ICT. 5.30 pm is the settled solution, meaning any fans wishing to attend the game who had plans for that Saturday evening have seen their weekend thrown up in the air at very short notice. And what of season ticket holders who have paid for the game but also have Saturday evening plans? Not to mention away supporters considering travelling from the Highlands to attend the game. Many will be put off by the prospect of arriving home around 11pm from a Saturday fixture, and who could blame them? The last train from Larbert to Inverness on Saturday evening leaves just as the game will be entering stoppage time. It arrives at quarter past 11.
This is hardly the first time Queens Park fans (and visiting clubs’ fans) have been messed about due to this arrangement. Saturday 3pm Queens Park home games have been thinner on the ground than normal this season, with Ayr, Dundee, and Arbroath all visiting on Friday nights.
Even more ridiculous is Queens Park’s refusal to acknowledge the reason for this level of fixture gymnastics. They simply Tweeted out that the time had changed, and it was left to ICT to explain the rationale to their supporters on social media.
Queens Park fans are rightly growing impatient with this shambles. Leeann Dempster is very highly thought of in the Scottish football media, and seems to have done a good job in previous roles at Motherwell and Hibs, but Spiders fans complain of a lack of communication. They’re being left in the dark about when fixtures will take place, how much notice they will get if they are to be changed, and when this will all end and they can return to Glasgow.
Scottish football clubs rely on the goodwill – and cash – of their supporters more than clubs in more high-profile footballing nations. A club the size of Queens Park cannot afford to disenchant its fanbase and expect them just to suck it up.
Queens Park have left amateurism behind on the pitch, but it’s hard to avoid using the same word to describe their approach to hosting matches this season and communicating with their support.