The club is delighted to confirm the signings of three more young players to add to the first team squad for next season. Steven Higgins and Darren Brownlie were at Palmerston today to sign their contracts, whilst Shaun Rutherford had earlier put pen to paper on a one year deal.

21 year old Darren Brownlie is a centre back who was with Cowdenbeath last season and previously had spells with Partick Thistle and Ayr United after coming through Motherwell's youth set up. He played in both of Cowden's 2-1 victories over us last season but didn't feature in our two later wins. Steven Higgins (19) came through the same set up at Motherwell and played last season in their u20 Development League team. He has yet to feature at first team level. Meanwhile 18 year old Shaun Rutherford joined up last week having left Livingston for whom he played 14 times at first team level last season, including 3 appearances against Queens.

Manager James Fowler thinks highly of all three having watched them several times "Rutherford is a player who impressed me when I watched him last year, he's only young but hopefully he can play his part next season.  Brownlie is someone I know well having played with him for a short spell.  He's just turned 21, a very good age to come in and play and he can only learn from the experienced defenders we already have in the squad, Andy Dowie and Chris Higgins.  As for Steven Higgins he's a young forward who is quick and has an eye for goal, again I believe he will continue to develop at Queens".

The photo below shows Steven and Darren with Chairman Billy Hewitson at Palmerston this afternoon.