End of Season Fayre at Dumfries (1958)

(first published in the match programme for St. Mirren v Rangers, 26^th April 2025)

St. Mirren travelled to Palmerston Park on Saturday 26^th April 1958 as Queen of the South's final home league opponents for the season. Both sides were sitting in mid table, the Buddies having amassed 27 points from their 31 games thus far, with the Doonhamers one place and one point better off.

The Queen of the South programme first appeared in 1933 and its format and size had remained relatively unchanged since then. It was an eight-page issue measuring 24cm by 16cm and was printed blue on white matt paper throughout. During the 1950s, many clubs began to experiment with their front cover designs, replacing bland team line-ups with more distinctive offerings. Queens introduced a cover photograph earlier in the decade but, by the time of Saints' visit in 1958, they had replaced this with the Club badge on a predominately blue cover. This design stayed in place until the mid-sixties.

On page two, below the list of Club Officials, there were a number of editorial pieces. The first of these, called "What's in a Name" related several anecdotes based upon the uniqueness of the name "Queen of the South". This was followed by "Au Revoir", which headlined a summary of the Doonhamers' accomplishments during season 1957/58.

"Come In Paisley" then discussed the progress of the two participating sides since their last meeting at Love Street on 28^th December 1957, when Queens completed a run of three successive away victories with a 2-1 win. Since that time, both sides had had a chequered career against the other relegation candidates, but both had now appeared to have put sufficient daylight between themselves and the bottom two places.

The final piece, appropriately entitled, "Final Curtain" was a Thank You to the Club's programme printers and included an interesting nugget of information for future collectors. A passing reference mentioned that programmes had been printed, but subsequently scrapped, for Queens' postponed games against Celtic and Motherwell. Further research has uncovered that the match against Celtic was in fact postponed twice and that the programme for the second match was reissued for the rearranged fixture. It would be interesting to know if any of the "scrapped" issues survived from the first match, scheduled for Christmas Day 1957.

The centre pages of the programme for the St. Mirren match displayed the team line-ups in 2-3-5 formation surrounded by adverts for local businesses. While the home side took the field as predicted, the Saints eleven saw two changes from the programme, with Tony Gregal and Jim Rodger replacing Willie Johnstone and 'flu victim Tommy Bryceland.

The only remaining reading matter in the programme consisted of Queens' fixtures and results on the right-hand side of page six and the obligatory Half Time Scoreboard on the back page, which included the Saints v Queens reserve fixture amongst the fourteen matches listed. Just over half of the programme was occupied by adverts.

The issue, which was originally priced at threepence, is still available nowadays and can be expected to cost around £10.

The lowest crowd of the season at Palmerston, barely exceeding 5,000, attended a typically scrappy end of season match with few highlights. The home team started smartly, but both sides were finding ball control difficult on the sodden grass.

After Saints' goalkeeper Campbell Forsyth had brought off a magnificent save from Jim Greenock's long-range effort, Bobby Rankin took advantage of a dithering Paisley defence to put Queens ahead in the 19^th minute. However, the lead lasted just seven minutes as Tommy Gemmell took advantage of a mistake by the home defence, and centre half Allan Elliot in particular, to level the scores.

Against the run of play, Vince Ryan put St. Mirren ahead in the 43^rd minute when the Doonhamers' defence hesitated, waiting for a linesman's flag for offside, but they left it too late to recover when no infringment was signalled.

Six minutes after the restart, a Jackie Oakes lob was misjudged by Forsyth and the ball rebounded off Rankin for his own, and his side's, second goal.

Although Alistair Miller constantly tormented Queens' Alec Smith, who was playing in an unfamiliar right back position, and captain Davie Lapsley emerged with honours against old foe Oakes, there was no further scoring and the match petered out.

The 2-2 final result suited both teams and mathematically secured First Division football for both in the following season.