Queen of the South

Ground: Palmerston Park

Visits: 1

Date: 30th October 2018

Match: Queen of the South - Greenock Morton 1-2 (Scottish Championship)

Attendance: 1 174

As in recent years I was free from work, from Tuesday onwards, the last week of October. No UEFA-games this year but plenty of midweek fixtures to choose from. A few years ago I attended Hibernian v Hearts, the Edinburgh derby, and once I realized the reversed fixture was to be played on Wednesday 31 October I decided to go to Scotland. There are no flights from Copenhagen to Glasgow or Edinburgh on Tuesdays and going through my options I booked the late (21.30) flight to Manchester on Monday evening. At 23.30 (local time) I was at my airport hotel and at 10.10 on Tuesday morning I then had a train from Manchester airport bringing me, via Carlisle, to Scotland. This morning there was plenty of cancelled and delayed trains but 40 minutes late, after twice changing platforms, my train left the airport station. We arrived 55 minutes late in Carlisle but I just about made the 13.10 Scotrail train to Dumfries. My hotel was across the street from the station and shortly before 14.00 I was in my room.

The first game on this tour was to be in the Scottish Championship, Queen of the South v Greenock Morton at Palmerston Park. Knowing Palmerston Park is a unique ground with plenty of murals I wanted to visit the ground in daylight. From my hotel it was around 20 minutes by foot and once outside the ground, behind the Terregles End, I found the murals and as you can see below they were indeed impressive. I then went to the rear of the other stands and next to the main stand I found an open gate where I could sneak in to take a few pictures of the empty stands. In 1857 local poet David Dunbar called Dumfries Queen of the South and the club used that name when it was formed in 1919. The club has always played at Palmerston Park and nowadays capacity is around 8 500. The ground has 3 300 seats but in a world of modern all-seated look alike stands it is the terracing that makes this ground unique. Once I had taken the pictures I went to the city centre where I had a coffee before returning to my hotel.

Kick-off was at 19.45 and an hour before the game was to start I was back outside the ground. The floodlights are supposed to be the tallest in Scotland and in the Dumfries night they looked impressive. It was £18 for all areas and it also meant I could switch between the new seated stand and the home terrace during the game. It was unreserved seating but after a while an elderly home fan pointed at my seat and said “That is where I normally sit”. I didn´t start an argument and simply moved two seats to the right. There are only 10 teams in the Scottish Championship and this was a mid-table clash. Teams placed 2 to 4 will be in the promotion play-offs though and both teams tonight are probably aiming for one of those spots. Queen of the South had most of the possession but a late for the visitors meant 0-1 at half-time. Stephen Dobbie has scored plenty of goals for Queen of the South this season and in the 65th minute he brought the home team level with a long range shot. The keeper probably should have saved it though. Queen of the South then pressed on for a winner but a few minutes from the end Greenock Morton scored a really nice goal to send the 101 away fans into wild celebrations. 1-2 was to be the final score and even though it was quite cold towards the end I was more than pleased with the start to this trip.