Queen's Park barred from cup defence

Published on Tuesday 23 June 2009 22:52

THEY are the founders of Scottish football, whose amateur status has long been a testament to their love of the beautiful game. Yet Queen's Park, the oldest club in the country, are to be banned from competing in the Scottish Amateur Cup, a tournament they helped found 100 years ago.

Despite abiding to the club's motto of Ludere causa ludendi, "to play for the sake of playing", and never turning professional, Queen's Park are no longer eligible to compete in the Scottish Amateur Cup, a tournament they first won in 1912. The Scottish Amateur Football Association (SAFA) voted at their recent annual general meeting to change the rules and so restrict the tournament only to teams who compete in Saturday amateur leagues.

Queen's Park, the only amateur team to play in the Scottish Football League, have for the past eight seasons fielded a team in the Scottish Amateur Cup known as the Hampden XI comprised of youth players and fringe first-team players.

After dropping out of the competition in the 1960s, Queen's Park re-entered the cup eight years ago and were granted an exemption from playing in an amateur league as a mark of respect to their history and status. Now the courtesy has been rescinded, which will prevent them from defending the title they won in May after defeating Hurlford Thistle 3-1.

SAFA president Angus McKay said: "We are obliged to fall into line with an SFA requirement to have all amateur players registered on a national registration system. Our volunteers will collect this information and populate the database from affiliated clubs as the record of amateur players in Scotland. It was agreed at the agm it will only be players on that list from Saturday teams that can compete in the Scottish Amateur Cup. As Queen's Park players are registered to the Scottish Football League and do not play in an amateur Saturday league they will not appear on the database. As it stands they cannot be allowed to enter."

Jim Hastie, the club president, said: "I will be in discussions with SAFA about this as it hurts both our club and their competition. We were delighted to win the cup and are determined to defend it next season."

Supporters of Queen's Park were angered by the decision which was described as "sheer hypocrisy". Alex Leggate, 23, a fan from Croftfoot in Glasgow said: "We've played in the Amateur Cup for years without any problem, but when we start having a bit of success, all of a sudden there appears to be resentment at our participation."