Queen of the South left with just three players

jaws73

Well-Known Member
Official Ticketer
Confusion over the start of the 2020/21 campaign due to the coronavirus campaign has seen the Doonhamers release most of their squad

Queen of the South will have a squad of just three players by the end of the week.

Only Stephen Dobbie, Kevin Holt and Jack Leighfield will remain beyond May 31 as they are contracted to next year.

The rest of the players won’t be offered new deals due to confusion surrounding the start of next season resulting from the coronavirus crisis.

Striker Gary Oliver was a handful of games away from triggering an automatic extension into 2021 but due to the stoppage of the league, he will miss out. The former Hearts player needed 20 league starts for a year-long extension but fell short on 13 with eight matches left.

Though Q.O.S seem to be in perhaps the worst predicament of the Championship clubs you can see why they don't want a return unless it is in front of spectators. A few in that division will be like minded and I'd bet my bottom dollar they'll want Hearts to be part of the Championship when it does resume.

Doesn't help Budge's cause I wouldn't have thought.
 
Last edited:
Fans are trying to make a bigger issue out of this than it actually is. Clubs outside of the top flight rarely offer anything more than one season contracts. Usually they'd be expected to offer extensions before the end of a season and recruit replacements during the summer. Right now we're seeing contracts exhaust and players released because clubs have no certainty as to when football will resume. As most clubs rely on match day income and there is currently no plans for the resumption of football with crowds, clubs are preparing for a longer period without revenue by not renewing contracts. Those players will still be out there looking for clubs when football gets the OK to return with crowds in stadiums. At that point clubs will be signing players again.

The reality of lower league football in Scotland is 1 season contracts. Clubs can essentially be mothballed if they have no player costs until such times as football can return. In the short term this was always going to affect smaller clubs disproportionately because those clubs would typically have limited cash reserves and very minor credit facilities. Once player contracts exhaust, the lower league clubs can manage costs and should be able to be mothballed until such times as football returns. Top flight clubs are the other way round - cash reserves and credit facilities to see out the remaining weeks of this season but increasingly difficult with multi-year contracts still to be paid the longer lockdown goes on.

We're seeing threads on FF every time a lower league side releases players. All it really shows is how little fans on here appreciate the reality of lower league club football.
 
Swings and roundabouts, they face a recruitment problem but the 1's that have a lot of players contracted have the problem of finding the money to pay them
 
Confusion over the start of the 2020/21 campaign due to the coronavirus campaign has seen the Doonhamers release most of their squad

Queen of the South will have a squad of just three players by the end of the week.

Only Stephen Dobbie, Kevin Holt and Jack Leighfield will remain beyond May 31 as they are contracted to next year.

The rest of the players won’t be offered new deals due to confusion surrounding the start of next season resulting from the coronavirus crisis.

Striker Gary Oliver was a handful of games away from triggering an automatic extension into 2021 but due to the stoppage of the league, he will miss out. The former Hearts player needed 20 league starts for a year-long extension but fell short on 13 with eight matches left.

Though Q.O.S seem to be in perhaps the worst predicament of the Championship clubs you can see why they don't want a return unless it is in front of spectators. A few in that division will be like minded and I'd bet my bottom dollar they'll want Hearts to be part of the Championship when it does resume.

Doesn't help Budge's cause I wouldn't have thought.

Before I form my opinion on this, which way did they vote?
 
Fans are trying to make a bigger issue out of this than it actually is. Clubs outside of the top flight rarely offer anything more than one season contracts. Usually they'd be expected to offer extensions before the end of a season and recruit replacements during the summer. Right now we're seeing contracts exhaust and players released because clubs have no certainty as to when football will resume. As most clubs rely on match day income and there is currently no plans for the resumption of football with crowds, clubs are preparing for a longer period without revenue by not renewing contracts. Those players will still be out there looking for clubs when football gets the OK to return with crowds in stadiums. At that point clubs will be signing players again.

The reality of lower league football in Scotland is 1 season contracts. Clubs can essentially be mothballed if they have no player costs until such times as football can return. In the short term this was always going to affect smaller clubs disproportionately because those clubs would typically have limited cash reserves and very minor credit facilities. Once player contracts exhaust, the lower league clubs can manage costs and should be able to be mothballed until such times as football returns. Top flight clubs are the other way round - cash reserves and credit facilities to see out the remaining weeks of this season but increasingly difficult with multi-year contracts still to be paid the longer lockdown goes on.

We're seeing threads on FF every time a lower league side releases players. All it really shows is how little fans on here appreciate the reality of lower league club football.

I understand what you are saying but I'd surmised that predominantly applied to Leagues 1 and 2 rather than the Championship.
 
I understand what you are saying but I'd surmised that was predominantly Leagues 1 and 2 rather than the Championship.

Nope. Championship as well. The only teams offering multi-season contracts are the top flight plus a handful of championship sides. Both Dundee teams. Caley Thistle were caught when they got relegated with players they couldn't afford and couldn't offload. Not many others offer multi-season deals.
 
Nope. Championship as well. The only teams offering multi-season contracts are the top flight plus a handful of championship sides. Both Dundee teams. Caley Thistle were caught when they got relegated with players they couldn't afford and couldn't offload. Not many others offer multi-season deals.

You can see why a number of clubs in the Championship won't countenance behind closed doors and would rather not play until a degree of spectators are allowed to attend.

That doesn't suit Hearts one iota. Their in some fix that I see no way out of.

Could the SPFL 'force' a top league that constitutes those that can play BCD including those from the Championship that can? I think they'd find that extremely difficult to get through on a vote of clubs (it would fail at Championship level I reckon).
 
You can see why a number of clubs in the Championship won't countenance behind closed doors and would rather not play until a degree of spectators are allowed to attend.

That doesn't suit Hearts one iota. Their in some fix that I see no way out of.

Could the SPFL 'force' a top league that constitutes those that can play BCD including those from the Championship that can? I think they'd find that extremely difficult to get through on a vote of clubs (it would fail at Championship level I reckon).

Certainly something that will be driving league reconstruction talks. Thats why 14-14-14 has legs. Top 12 plus the top 2 from the Championship would potentially be looking at behind closed doors. That may well be where Dundee see an advantage. Could Caley Thistle commit to a season where they don't know when crowds would be able to return?

Tiers 2 and 3 would essentially be mothballed until fans could return to matches. Potential there for a shortened 26 game season.
 
Fans are trying to make a bigger issue out of this than it actually is. Clubs outside of the top flight rarely offer anything more than one season contracts. Usually they'd be expected to offer extensions before the end of a season and recruit replacements during the summer. Right now we're seeing contracts exhaust and players released because clubs have no certainty as to when football will resume. As most clubs rely on match day income and there is currently no plans for the resumption of football with crowds, clubs are preparing for a longer period without revenue by not renewing contracts. Those players will still be out there looking for clubs when football gets the OK to return with crowds in stadiums. At that point clubs will be signing players again.

The reality of lower league football in Scotland is 1 season contracts. Clubs can essentially be mothballed if they have no player costs until such times as football can return. In the short term this was always going to affect smaller clubs disproportionately because those clubs would typically have limited cash reserves and very minor credit facilities. Once player contracts exhaust, the lower league clubs can manage costs and should be able to be mothballed until such times as football returns. Top flight clubs are the other way round - cash reserves and credit facilities to see out the remaining weeks of this season but increasingly difficult with multi-year contracts still to be paid the longer lockdown goes on.

We're seeing threads on FF every time a lower league side releases players. All it really shows is how little fans on here appreciate the reality of lower league club football.
Well said mate some on here haven’t a clue
 
The thing with QOS is they couldnt amalgemate with any club.
Would Hamilton be their nearest senior club.
 
vy0jrti.gif
 
I'm from dumfries and really couldn't give a %^*& about them!

I've no sympathy, I do however feel for players caught up in all this, it must be horrendous not knowing your future
 
Every day RFC & the bheasts from the east don't play for paying punters erodes the chances of the financially unviable minnows surviving. Still they bite our hand....
 
Their ground is just down the road from me. Their chairman is a hypocritical prick. His team would have been relegated as they were in free fall. He was in the local paper last week saying it will be great having Hearts in their division next year as they will bring loads of away fans. I wouldn’t shed any tears if they go bust
 
Last edited:
Their ground is just down the road from me. Their chairman is a hypocritical prick. His team would have been relegated as they were in free fall. He was in the local paper last week saying it will be great having Hearts in their division next year as they will bring loads of away fans. I wouldn’t shed any tears if they go bust
I've had previous experience with Hewitson and i can confirm he is a two faced prick and a bottle merchant into the bargain.
 
Would be a classic bit of shithousery if them going bust kept Thistle up.

Maybe they can ask for an advance* or a loan*?


* denotes both the same thing.
 
Weren’t we all told the vote to hand the filth the title was in fact the “Scottish football survival plan” as Keith Jackson kept calling it. Was voting yes to wrongly hand out trophies and relegate clubs not meant to avoid all of this chaos.

I’d even have a shred of sympathy for some of these clubs that voted for the proposal to end the season if they were man enough to admit they done it for the money but also acknowledged that the process was dodgy and had therefore voted for the independent enquiry.

As it was, most of them voted against it and sided with the corrupt SPFL scum and by extension the mentally challengeds so fûck the lot of them.
 
I think a 16 team league will be forced on us as has been the master plan/ carrot dangled to dundee.

16 team full professional league the drum beats started by strachan in the media the other day sly bastards
 
Back
Top