Its rare that Palmerston sees a genuine, unique first these days, but this Sundays game against Linfield FC is exactly that. A competitive game against a team from another country – our neighbours from Northern Ireland, in fact – in a Scottish cup competition is about as unique as it gets.
Yes, it's IRN-BRU Cup 4th round time and this season four non-Scottish teams were invited to join the competition. Linfield FC and Crusaders FC from Northern Ireland and TNS and Bala Town from Wales.
We're delighted to welcome Linfield FC and their fans on Sunday.
The Opposition
Linfield, play in the NIFL Premiership and are one of Northern Irelands most successful sides having won the league title 51 times since their foundation in 1886. They play their home games at Northern Irelands national stadium, Windsor Park. Despite their historic dominance its been 5 years since their last league win, which came in the 11/12 season.
The Blues, though, have made a good start to this season and sit second, just 5 points behind Crusaders who have played a game more. Like us, they are also unbeaten in the league this season.
Linfield are managed by, former Northern Ireland international, David Healy, probably best known for his scoring exploits for Preston and Leeds and to Scottish fans from his season at Rangers in 2011.
Another ex-Rangers player in the Blues squad is goalkeeper, Roy Carroll. Also an ex-Northern Ireland international, Roy spent the 2007/8 season at Ibrox along with our own Lee Robinson. Roy is better known though, for his time at Manchester United where he won both the Premier League and FA Cup. Roy's backup in goals is promising young keeper, Gareth Deane, who wont feature on Sunday due to his call up to the Northern Ireland U21 squad. Joining him in that squad is pacey forward Paul Smyth who is, therefore, also not available for Sundays match.
There is plenty of international experience in the Linfield line-up, with no fewer than 5 full internationalists, all but one capped for Northern Ireland. The exception being Kris Bright who has 6 caps for New Zealand. Their most capped, current, player is Sammy Clingan who has 39 Northern Ireland caps to his name. Sammy also has a wealth of experience playing for over 10 years in England before spending 2 years with Kilmarnock immediately prior to joining Linfield in the summer.
Sammy isnt the only player in the Blues squad with experience of the Scottish leagues, 5 others have appeared for Scottish clubs during their careers.
The Blues have plenty of goals in their team, notching up 91 in 38 games last season and have already scored 20 goals in their first 9 league games this season. Leading the way, this season, is winger Aaron Burns who has found the net 7 times and is the only player to start all 12 games for them this season. Burns is already on the way to beating the 27 goals he managed last season. Surprisingly, that didn’t make him the clubs top scorer as, forward, Andrew Waterworth led the way with a very impressive 32 goals.
The Game
This IRN-BRU Cup, 4th round, match kicks off at 1pm on Sunday 9th October at Palmerston. Live updates will be available on the website and on twitter and Facebook. We will also publish pictures through the day on our new Instagram Channel
The game is also live on BBC Alba
There will be a minutes silence before the game in memory of Ryan Baird, the Linfield and Rangers fan who died last Saturday. The Linfield fans will also be taking part in a minutes applause on the 39th minute of the game in memory of Ryan and Queens fans are encouraged to join in.
More information on this can be found here
The Fans
The normal ticket procedure applies for the game and tickets will be available for all areas of the ground on match day from the usual ticket offices, which will open at 11am.
Tickets can also be purchased in advance from the Midsteeple and the Club Shop. The Club Shop will be open on Saturday from 1pm to 2pm for ticket sales.
This game is likely to be busier than usual so fans are asked where possible to buy tickets in advance. Home fans should note that season tickets are NOT valid for this game.
Full ticket details and prices, for home and away fans, can be found here
Pricing for the game is as follows :
Adults : £15
Concessions : £9
Under 16s : £5
Directions on how to get to Palmerston, including parking information, can be found here
Never been to Palmerston before? Read our First Time Fan Guide
The Dressing Room
We head into this weekend on the back of two hard fought goal-less draws against Hibernian at home and away to Dumbarton.
I didn’t think we were at our best last week and would accept that nil – nil was a fair result. They had the better of the first half and us the second, although we probably didn’t work their keeper hard enough to merit taking a win.
But that’s eight games without defeat in the Championship and it was another clean-sheet which is a fantastic effort by the boys. The fact that the players were treating the result as a defeat tells me what I need to know about them.
As teams become aware of us, the matches will only get harder; it’s never an easy place to go so to take a point from a tough place, I’m not going to turn it down when we’ve not been at our best.
It’s a break from the league this week as we host Linfield in the Irn Bru Challenge Cup. The first time that Irish and Welsh sides have been involved in the tournament.
It’s something different and brings a bit of a fresh feel to the game. With it being a Sunday lunchtime match between teams from two different nations and live on TV and radio hopefully it will raise the interest and add a bit of atmosphere.
Obviously we don’t know too much about them, but we’ve had them watched and done our homework so know they’re in the competition on merit. Like any game we play we will have to give them the upmost respect.
It’s a game and competition we are desperate to win. Queens have a good record having won it twice and having reached the final on another two occasions, so we will be going out and giving it everything to make sure we keep that going.
The Team
Dale Hilson and Calum Tapping will be missing and could be out for a while. After picking up a calf injury in the warm up last weekend Derek Lyle is very doubtful for Sunday as is Jim Atkinson.
Matchday Update : there are no fresh injuries to report. As expected, Lyle, Hilson, Atkinson and Tapping are unavailable.
The Officials
Referee : Iwan Griffith (WAL)
Assistant 1 : Andrew McWilliam
Assistant 2 : Graeme Leslie
Fourth Official : Barry Cook
Another first? This game will be refereed by Iwan Griffith, who is from the Welsh FA.
The Stats
As this is the first meeting between the two clubs there are no head to head statistics. Its also the first time we've played a club from outside Scotland in a Scottish competitive fixture.