Queens v St Mirren

[palmylad]

Another big game for Queens this weekend with the visit of league leaders St Mirren to Palmerston Park. Hopefully the weather is as mild as it is today and the game goes ahead . That was not only unfortunate but frustrating for everyone last Saturday, something completely out of everyone’s control

Dundee United were the best team I’ve seen us face this season and should really of been ahead before it’s abandonment . Unsure if the manager will start the same 11 or not. Personally didn’t think Big Dykes had his best 45 minutes for Queens

Another big noisy away support heading down so we’ll need to Queens fans to be in fine voice like last weekend . What a difference it makes

Mon the South

[palmylad]

Steven McLean will referee this fixture

[ALBERTZ_11]

Thanks for the info.

[Ftivano1]

The Buddies are sure to bring a decent support which will boost the attendance like the Arabs did last week but, after 7 home league games the Queens supports average is only just over 1,300 !

[jardi]

OK, - lets look at the positives, - we know that crowds are down for whatever reason, - we'll just need to try and get folk to come back.

Unfortunately the Saturday before Christmas is historically not the best time to host a match, - but that's what we have and we must embrace the fact that yet again we are facing the league leaders.....go out and tell everyone that they should come along and enjoy some fresh air and hopefully a few goals as well.

One thing's for sure, - any complacency that may have crept in after Dunfermline should have been blown away by the Utd players!

Did anyone else see the full page article on Stephen Dobbie in last Saturday's Times?

[palmylad]

OK, - lets look at the positives, - we know that crowds are down for whatever reason, - we'll just need to try and get folk to come back.

Unfortunately the Saturday before Christmas is historically not the best time to host a match, - but that's what we have and we must embrace the fact that yet again we are facing the league leaders.....go out and tell everyone that they should come along and enjoy some fresh air and hopefully a few goals as well.

One thing's for sure, - any complacency that may have crept in after Dunfermline should have been blown away by the Utd players!

Did anyone else see the full page article on Stephen Dobbie in last Saturday's Times?

Article from today's Times about Stephen Dobbie

Stephen Dobbie remembers the moment in 2006 when, at the age of 24, and when his career should have been taking off, he found himself shunted on loan from St Johnstone to Dumbarton for the season. It seemed a desperate fate for a footballer of such ability.

“As you get older you look back and say to yourself, ‘I wish I’d known then what I know now’,” says the Queen of the South striker. “I didn’t look after myself right back then, I went out a lot, my diet was wrong, I never went to the gym. I needed a wake-up call and going to Dumbarton gave me that.

Brendan was a great manager. He changed me at Swansea, made me more of a No 10

“I was playing with part-time guys who were coming straight from their work into training. I was supposed to be the pro with a promising career. I looked at myself and thought, ‘I need to get my head on this’.”

He did, too, and it became a remarkable story. Now 35, Dobbie is back with Queen of the South, a club he loves and for whom he has scored 99 goals, 18 of them so far this season. Along the way he has played in three English Football League Championship play-off finals in front of 80,000-plus fans — he was on the winning side in two of them — and gained promotion to England’s Premier League with Brendan Rodgers and Swansea City.

Exactly four years after his part-time days with Dumbarton, Dobbie lined up for Swansea in their Premier League debut against Manchester City at the Etihad, on the same day that Sergio Agüero was making his City debut.

“People doubted me in my early days, maybe rightly,” says Dobbie. “It took a bit of luck and a lot of hard work to get to the level I reached in England. I remember when I had one season left at Queen of the South in 2008 I trained all summer, got really fit, and told myself ‘right, this is it, this is the time, this is your chance’.

“I scored a lot that following season [23 goals in 34 games] and with five games to go someone said to me, ‘Swansea City are coming to watch you, they want to sign you’. I scored about seven goals in those last five games and, when the season finished, I got the message that Swansea were signing me. It was a dream come true.

“I went on to have some memorable times. Scoring in a Championship play-off final at Wembley in front of 90,000 fans, with my friends and family there, was unforgettable. I had great times with Swansea, and also with Blackpool under Ian Holloway.

“People say I was a late developer but maybe that’s how it had to be. I might have had a bad injury, or something else might have happened to change my career. I was at Rangers with Stephen Hughes, who was tremendous, and his career started brightly before fading. I seemed to be the opposite: it got better for me as I got older.”

Dobbie credits Brendan Rodgers, his manager at Swansea between 2010 and 2012, for having given his career fresh impetus and direction. It culminated in Dobbie scoring and Swansea beating Reading 4-2 in that 2011 play-off final to reach the English Premier League.

“I can’t praise Brendan enough,” he says. “Apart from being a really nice person he was a great manager to play under. Even if you weren’t in the team, you still looked forward to training with him on a Monday. He had this way of treating his players and looking after them.
Dobbie says Palmerston ‘just feels right’ and is happy at home in Lytham

“Brendan changed me. He noticed that my ability was best when not straight up against someone, so he dropped me back and made me more of a No 10. I played about 44 games out of 50 matches for him at Swansea the season we won promotion. My confidence soared and that day at Wembley was unforgettable.”

The following season, however, Dobbie probably realised his glass ceiling. Having played so much for Swansea under Rodgers, he made fewer than ten appearances in the EPL and was loaned back once more to Blackpool, where he would play in another play-off final at the end of 2011-12. In fact, from 2010 Dobbie played in three successive Championship play-off finals — with Swansea and twice on loan with Blackpool — winning two of them.

“I had no regrets about it,” says Dobbie. “With Swansea going up into the EPL, of course they were going to go out and buy better players. I still played a few times that season, but then I went back to Blackpool and really enjoyed it there. I played under Ian Holloway at Blackpool, which was fantastic. He was very different from Brendan, very gung-ho, sort of ‘if they score four against us, we’ll score five’. For Ian it was all about attack and it was exciting.”

By 2016 Dobbie had enjoyed seven fulfilling and lucrative years in English football, but the downturn was coming. Yet even then he surprised many by choosing Queen of the South for his next move at the age of 34, when far bigger clubs and far more money were on offer to him. “I had a great time at Queens first time round and I always said I wanted to go back there one day. I like the club and I have a good relationship with the supporters. It’s like being a kid again, I’m loving my football.

“I was at Bolton under Neil Lennon and on the bench much of the time. I reached a stage when I thought, ‘what am I doing here, this isn’t enjoyable’. When you get to that age, 34, you just want to be playing football and be happy.

“So I made up my mind, and it was easy. I had other options in England when I left Bolton — Blackpool, Oldham, Rochdale and others — but I knew where I wanted to be. I wanted to go back to Queen of the South.

“First time round at Palmerston I played in a Scottish Cup final and we played in Europe for a first time. It’s a small club but it just feels right.”

After an itinerant career, Dobbie, his wife, Susanne, and their two small boys, Jack and Maxwell, have put down their roots in Lytham St Annes. “I drive up and down, it’s fine,” he says. “I can get to home games in Dumfries in two hours. Tuesdays and Thursdays I also drive up and down for training in Hamilton. After all our moving around when I went back to Blackpool in 2014 we said, ‘right, enough, this is now home’. I don’t see us leaving Lytham.”

And how long has Dobbie, the great predator, got left in football? “I want to play on for at least another two years. But when I finish, I know the thing I’ll miss most is that feeling of scoring a goal. There is no feeling like it; I’ll really miss it.”

Have boots, will travel: Dobbie’s great adventure

July 2000 Signs for Rangers but doesn’t make it to first team.

July 2003 Joins Hibernian. 35 appearances, 2 goals.

June 2005 Joins St Johnstone. 20 appearances, 1 goal.

July 2006 Joins Dumbarton on loan. 17 appearances, 10 goals.

June 2007 Joins Queen of the South at 25, plays in Scottish Cup final. 84 appearances, 47 goals.

June 2009 Signs for Swansea City.

May 2010 Joins Blackpool on loan and helps them beat Cardiff City 3-2 in Football League play-off final.

May 2011 Plays in second play-off final at Wembley and scores in Swansea City’s 4-2 defeat of Reading.

May 2012 Plays for Blackpool in third successive play-off final, but they lose 2-1 to West Ham United.

June 2013 Signs for Crystal Palace, but goes back to Blackpool for a third loan spell.

July 2015 Signs for Bolton Wanderers. 24 appearances, 4 goals.

August 2016 Returns to Queen of the South, aged 34.

December 9 2017 Scores hat-trick v Dunfermline and has 99 career goals for Queen of the South.

[palmylad]

[JRSLEFTPEG]

Not any team we can't beat at Palmerston so I hope we go out with an approach to win the game.

[jardi]

Thanks for that Palmylad, - my mother in law always reads the paper after me, and on this occasion had set the fire with it, - so it was gone!

[Ftivano1]

Thanks for that Palmylad, - my mother in law always reads the paper after me, and on this occasion had set the fire with it, - so it was gone!

Unsigned (with real name that is) letter in today's Standard about low attendances at Palmy if someone can put it on this site please.