NEW CLAIMS OVER WHY CLUB REFUSED TO GO PRO
explanation for why Queen’s Park FC decided not to join the Scottish Footbal l League in 1890 has been based around the club’s commitment to amateurism and its support for junior clubs who feared an adverse impact from professionalism.
“To position itself as a defender of the juniors is consistent with the mission of Queen’s Park as a club declaring its commitment to the development of Scottish footbal l rather than upholding the interests of a select number of professional league sides. “However, a cont rar ian interpretation was that it was also acting in accordance with its own needs rather than a total ly principled defence of amateurism.
“I t s pub l ic defenc e of amateurism deflected attention from the fact that, by joining the Scottish Football League, Queen’s Park would have been forced into part gate- sharing whereas its ‘ invariable rule when playing home fixtures is for each club to retain its own drawings’.”
Professor Wray Vamplew, a sports economist at the Academy of Sport who co- authored the study, said: “In Glasgow, you had the three biggest stadiums in the world at that time – Hampden, Celtic Park and Ibrox.
“Queen’s Park was bigger than either, although they started to
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be overtaken as the new century approached. Yes, they had lofty ideals around amateurism and wanting to protect fellow amateur teams around them but they also had a really successful club.
“While maintaining amateur status, they could decide how much they should give to another club on a match-by-match basis.”
Queen’s Park spent the last years of the century travelling the UK to play money-spinning “charity” matches. But the club eventually caved in and joined the Scottish league in 1900.
Last November, the club voted to go professional – the last club in the SPFL to do so.
Queen’s Park did not respond to our request for a comment.