Spiders can’t allow amateur status to drag them down

WHEN Queen’s Park surrender their status as the last amateur team in British senior football, the hand-wringing will be epic. The Spiders have an outstanding back story, no question. They’re a club of huge historic significance and an elder statesman of the Scottish game. They virtually invented passing football. They provided all 11 players for the first Scotland international against England in November 1872. Only Celtic and Rangers have won more Scottish Cups. But the last major trophy they won was in 1893. And there’s a reason for that. That was the year Scottish teams embraced professionalism. All, that is, bar one. The club’s Latin motto is Ludere Causa

Ludendi and means ‘to play for the sake of playing’. It’s a lovely ideal. But in modern football it’s hopelessly anachronistic. Much like the club itself. A former Spiders player in the 1980s, current president Gerry Crawley believes amateurism has left Queen’s a sitting duck. There’s no alternative to going pro. They finished seventh in League Two last season and they’ll inevitably do a Berwick Rangers and crash into the Lowlands League unless they can attract better players. Let’s face it, Kelty Hearts, Bonnyrigg Rose and East Kilbride won’t give a toss for the history of Queen’s Park if their place is up for grabs in League Two. Last season the Spiders reached the semi-finals of the Scottish Youth Cup. And four of the team promptly left for Aberdeen, Hibs, Ross County and St Mirren without a brass farthing being paid in compensation because Queen’s couldn’t offer them a professional contract. Ownership of Hampden has pretty much gone. And over the next week or two the club committee really have to reach a decision to give up their amateur status as well to retain any relevance at all in a sport obsessed with money. When it happens, you can put the kettle on for traditionalists bemoaning the loss of football’s soul. But, back in 1893, a foolish, if admirable, determination to remain an amateur concern cost Queen’s Park their status as one of Britain’s biggest football clubs. They can’t allow it to cost them their place in the senior leagues as well.