Kings of the South

Queen of the South 4 - 3 Aberdeen
By Michael Grant at Hampden

QUEEN OF the South have always managed to one of the great and evocative names of Scottish football without doing much to be worth talking about. Yesterday they rose up and produced a result which launched them into the cup final and may yet take them into Europe.

In a day laced with unbridled celebration as well as simmering anger, Hampden staged one of its most entertaining cup ties. Queens will grace the final for the first time in their history because they handled the occasion when their fancied opponents could not.

It took poor play to make it an outstanding spectacle - both sides defended horribly but Aberdeen took by far the greater share of the blame - but the drama was relentless.
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The victory was a triumph of Queens' character and their strikers' finishing. Three times they went ahead only for Aberdeen to cancel each of their leads within minutes.

When the First Division side did so for a fourth time the match briefly seemed ridiculous and another equaliser seemed inevitable. Aberdeen had half an hour left to find one and could not do so.

The recriminations in the north-east must be long and thorough as Aberdeen figure out how they could be shown up by a First Division team. Losing the match had always been a possibility but to concede four goals was an unpardonable collapse.

They hauled 14,000 supporters with them to Glasgow and Jimmy Calderwood and most of his team failed them and will not be forgiven. When the final whistle went red and white scarves rained down on to the trackside.

Those supporters had jeered John Stewart when he came on as a 42nd minute substitute for the unfortunate Stephen Dobbie, whose trickery had been a handful until he succumbed to a knee injury.

Stewart once scored a winner for Aberdeen at Parkhead but did little else before being released, which explained the jeers. Not only did he answer those taunts with the unanswered fourth goal, he produced a second half display of pace and directness which Aberdeen could not handle.

"If you get taunted it gives you an extra incentive, an extra edge," said Chisholm. "He won't be very popular in Aberdeen tonight."

Sean O'Connor's brawn gave Aberdeen a headache as well. Andrew Considine and Zander Diamond have never had an uglier 90 minutes together and goalkeeper Derek Soutar and full-backs Jackie McNamara and Alan Maybury were accomplices in the defensive mess.

Calderwood talked of how far managers are from the touchline at Hampden and hinted that his senior players - the likes of McNamara, Maybury and Scott Severin - should have taken more responsibility on the pitch.

The lack of leadership was undeniable although supporters will wonder how a manager cannot overcome a First Division team with a group of players who have beaten FC Copenhagen, won at Celtic Park and led twice against Bayern Munich.

The club had envisaged a place in the cup final and the probability of returning to the Uefa Cup next season, but all of that was beyond a team which cannot defend.

Queens were exposed at the back too and unless they tighten up it may cost them the chance to win the final. It was their only flaw in a day their excellent 10,000-strong support can savour for years.

When O'Connor bullied Soutar at a free-kick the ball fell for Steve Tosh - one of three former Aberdeen players who started the match before Stewart came on to make a quartet - to lash a shot into the net. Considine equalised with a powerful header over Jim Thomson to make it 1-1 at half time.

There was no inkling of the adrenaline rush still to come. From the restart Stewart made an early impact by racing away from Diamond and crossing for Burns to score at the second attempt. Within three minutes it was level again as Barry Nicholson pounced after a Lee Miller header was saved.

By now Queens were wise to Aberdeen's defending: Tosh launched a long ball at them, Considine floundered, O'Connor twisted Diamond and buried another goal. No-one bothered to mark Considine as he equalised again with a header to make it 3-3. Where was it going to end?

"I just thought we kept blowing it, we kept getting our nose in front and kept giving a goal away," said Chisholm. "I thought we're not going to do it'. I did expect Aberdeen to come back a fourth time. I thought the game could have been 7-4, or 6-5."

Instead there were only the seven goals and the last of them settled it. Aberdeen did not defend a ball from the right and when Thomson flicked it on Stewart had all the time and space in the world to bury it.

McNamara was booed off by the Aberdeen supporters before storming straight up the tunnel. Without him they pressed to equalise yet again but were never convincing.

As the two ends of the country converged on Hampden, it was a regal triumph for the south.

Queen of the South substitutes: Stewart for Dobbie 42, Paton for McCann 90 Not used: Grindlay, O'Neil, Gilmour Booked: McCann 70
Aberdeen substitutes: Mackie for McNamara 62, Young for Maybury 80 Not used: Langfield, Duff, Touzani Booked: none
Referee: K Clark Att: 24,008

Taken from the Sunday Herald