Queen’s to hold meeting with their members
Queen’s Park are to hold a meeting with their members this Wednesday to go over the implications of the sale of their Hampden home to the SFA for £5million and the move to the nearby Lesser Hampden. Scotland’s oldest club had asked to continue playing their games at the 115-year-old ground during negotiations over the deal. However, the SFA announced on Tuesday that Lesser Hampden would be “Queen’s Park’s new registered licensed ground for all its matches”. The threat of international matches and cup ties moving to Edinburgh’s Murrayfield when a lease between the governing body and the 151-year-old club expires in 2020 – leaving Queen’s with potential debts of £18m to repay to the National Lottery and Debenture Holders – was a key driver in the SFA securing ownership at a price less than the ground’s valuation. Indeed had the committee that run the League 2 side not stood firm at £5m against threats to move to Edinburgh they would not have received close to that amount. Queen’s move to Lesser was a footnote to the choice of Hampden over Murrayfield. However, considerable work is required to make the ground compliant with the requirements to host senior football. At present, Queen’s training HQ since 1923 does not hold a safety certificate and basic infrastructure such as turnstiles and toilets for fans are not in place. A substantial chunk of the funds from the sale will be required to pay for the changes. Further detail on what the move will mean will be announced on Tuesday with club president Gerry Crawley saying: “It has been an emotional time as Queen’s have enormous links to Hampden. It is a difficult outcome for us as a club and we will speak to the members about it on Wednesday.” The Queen’s president may also have to spend time this week looking to recruit a new head coach, as Gus MacPherson remains of interest to St Mirren. The former boss at the Paisley club has held talks with the Saints over taking on the role of technical director as part of the revamp after the appointment of Oran Kearney as manager. MacPherson, who took the Spiders at Stirling Albion yesterday, said: “The clubs spoke about allowing a conversation to take place. I’ve had a chat with St Mirren.” “The next stage would be for the clubs to speak again.”