Queen's Park's Ambitious Journey in the Championship
Queen's Park were supposed to fade. They were supposed to slide quietly back down the SPFL ladder once Lord Willie Haughey stepped away from his high-profile financial backing.
They haven’t.
Instead of crumbling, the Spiders dug in. Sean Crighton’s side spent last season eyeing the promotion play-offs rather than the trapdoor, eventually finishing a very respectable sixth in the Championship. For a club many had already filed under “project over”, it was a pointed response.
The academy may have gone, but the production line has not. Queen’s Park’s under-17s and under-19s both won their leagues last season, a reminder that the club’s oldest tradition – bringing through players – is still very much alive.
And Haughey has not vanished either. His City Charitable Trust has been central to transforming the club’s Lochinch training base in the middle of Glasgow’s Pollok Park, a facility Crighton knows is a major asset.
“One thing we’ve got here is a great training centre,” the manager says. “And, obviously, at Lesser Hampden, the pitch is unbelievable. We’ve got the facilities – we need to be a good Championship team.”
That is the bar now. Not survival. Credibility.
A club built to move players on
Queen’s Park have long worn their role as a launchpad with pride. Andy Robertson and Lawrence Shankland are the two headline examples, but they are far from alone. The club is now leaning hard into the Scottish FA’s Craig Mulholland-led vision of developing young Scottish talent with an eye on both performance and the balance sheet.
Crighton rattles off recent departures like a coach who takes as much satisfaction in the exits as the arrivals.
“Josh Fowler’s moved on to St Johnstone, doing well in the Premiership,” he says. “Seb Drozd has moved on to Partick Thistle – he’s flying over there. Henry Fieldson’s gone to St Mirren.
“We’ve got a barrowload of them [this season]. Young Ross McLean has come into the team last year a couple of times and progressed well this year. He’s a manager’s dream, he’s very versatile – he can play in the middle, he can play wide, he can play at the back.
“Tyrece McDonnell as well. I think he made 26 appearances last season.”
This is not an accidental by-product of the model. It is the model.
“We need to be that club because that’s Queen’s Park’s history,” Crighton adds. “The guys that are in the national team, they started at Queen’s Park.
“When I got the job, that was it from the outset. It was, ‘can you help players progress?’ Not just me, everyone in the building. That’s what we want to try and do.
“I’ve got a sense of pride that we’ve managed to have these players play for us and then move on.”
The message is clear: if you’re young, ambitious and Scottish, Queen’s Park want to be your proving ground.
Learning the hard way in the Championship
On the pitch this season, the lessons have been tougher.
A sharp League Cup group campaign hinted at momentum, but the Championship has bitten back. Queen’s Park sit second bottom, with little margin for error as Ayr United – one place and one point better off – arrive at Lesser Hampden for a Friday night TV game.
Inside the dressing room, though, there is little sign of panic. Central midfielder Scott Martin, at 29 one of the elder statesmen in a young squad, has seen enough to believe they will pull clear.
He has also had a front-row seat for the latest wave of talent being tested by the division’s demands.
“Young Aiden McCallion [co-operation loan from Rangers], he’s a central midfielder as well,” Martin says. “He’s been great since he came through the door, gets on with his work, very tidy on the ball. Same with Lewis Stewart [also co-operation loan from Rangers], he’s lightning.
“At Rangers, they must be so used to dominating the ball and having time. But here in the Championship it’s a totally different game. It’s end-to-end, it’s high intensity.
“It will be a great experience for them because they’re learning a totally different side of the game that maybe you wouldn’t learn at a B team or an under-19s or 20s, whatever it might be. The way they have fitted in has been absolutely top notch.”
The Championship does not care about reputations or development plans. It is frantic, unforgiving, and often decided by who handles the chaos better. For Queen’s Park’s loanees and academy graduates, it is exactly the kind of education the club want them to have.
Belief from Firhill, focus on Ayr
Results have not always matched the performances, but Martin points to one game as a mental shift – the 0-0 draw away to Partick Thistle.
“We’ve had a lot of difficult games, but I think the Partick Thistle game was our turning point in the sense that we found that belief that we can go to, in my opinion, the hardest place in the Championship and grab a point,” he says.
“In terms of where we are this season, I think we’re OK. There’s been parts of games where we play really, really well. It’s just trying to put that all together and be more consistent.
“We’ve got a youngish squad at times as well, so it can be a bit difficult, but we’re not far away from being a right good side again.”
That is the tightrope Queen’s Park now walk. They must continue to blood and showcase young players, stay true to their identity, and at the same time scrap for every point in a division where “anybody can beat anybody,” as Martin puts it.
The facilities are there. The pathway is clear. The history is rich and relevant. The question now is blunt and immediate: can this youthful, ambitious Queen’s Park side turn promise into results quickly enough to make the Championship their long-term home rather than just another staging post?
