The 27 year old midfielder has played in three countries over his career and was successful at Morton where he won the league in 2014-15. As well as playing in Scotland he spent time at Burnley and Carlisle in England and played for Dundalk in Ireland.

Joe admits he become a bit disillusioned at one club which led him to go part time with Dumbarton last season. It was there he found his enjoyment again and wanted to make a return to full time football and feels that he can be successful with Queens.

“I am delighted to have joined the club and I’m looking forward to get back playing again. I have played against Queens a lot over the years and after I spoke to the manager, I was excited to join. I have spoken to the manager a number of times over the years when both he and I were at other clubs but this time the timing was right for us to work together. Queens are an established Championship club so it didn’t take too much to convince me to join”.

Although Joe was part-time for a season he doesn’t think it will take too much for him to get back up to speed.

“I’ve played a lot in the Championship before but the situation for me was that I reached a stage where I was not enjoying it at my previous full time club and Dumbarton was an opportunity for me to go and enjoy my football again but I missed being full time so I don’t think it will take me long to get back up to speed. Last year although I was part time I trained on a Monday and Friday myself and trained with Dumbarton Tuesday and Thursday so I was keeping myself fit and training as though I was full time. I’m just looking forward to getting back in on a daily basis”.

With only three players left from last season, Allan Johnston is practically pulling together a whole new squad and the midfielder one of seven signings on Monday, knows it will be tough but believes they can bond during pre-season “I hope we can kick on; it’s always hard at first when it’s a complete new squad – I was in a similar position with Dumbarton last year when the manager had to sign a lot of players, obviously it’s going to be the same but I think with five or six weeks of pre-season under our belt together we can gel quickly and have a good season”.

While hoping the team can have a good season, Joe also has his own aims “Personally I just want to play as many games and do as well as I can. I think every player will say the same thing; they want to play as much as possible and put in consistent performances. I wouldn’t say there are any numbers that I try to get – last year I had a lot of assists and I played 30 odd games so if I could have another season like that I would be happy. All we can hope for is that we get off to a good start and that we can be consistent”.

As a player he hopes to be able to excite the fans “I’m a central midfield player and I like to go forward. I think in years gone by I have been held back by having to play a role that didn’t suit me which was sitting in front of the back four. I am a forward thinking player, I like to go and get on the ball as much as I can, I like to spread passes and I like to try to create chances, set pieces are also a big part of my game. I just like to be heavily involved in the game and always want to have some impact wither that is setting up a goal or scoring I don’t mind. Obviously I will work as hard as I can for the team”.

When Joe was part-time last season he turned to coaching but has decided to take a step back for the time being “I’m 27 and my priority is my playing career, if it hadn’t been I would probably have stayed part time but I want to do as well as I can as a player. I will keep my coaching going on the side away from training but first and foremost I will be focusing on what I can do as a player”.

Prior to joining Queens on Monday, Joe spent last Saturday at Cumbernauld where he was holding coaching sessions and in the last seven or eight weeks has held over 30 sessions a week coaching kids from the age of five up to 18 / 19 year old.

Although he wants to concentrate mainly on his own game, he is happy to use his skills to help others if they want it. He admits since taking up coaching it has given him a different perspective “I think any player that goes into coaching when they are still a player will say it’s refreshing when you see it from the other side because you are used to turning up and doing your sessions and then you don’t really think too much about it; but when your involved you can appreciate how hard it is for the coaches and managers to plan and set up sessions trying to build towards achieving what you want on a Saturday”.

“It’s definitely been an eye opener for me and I think it’s good to see it through a different lense”.

“It’s something I set it up when I went part time as I did a couple of jobs here and there and absolutely hated it cause I’d been full time for 10 years before then. Coaching is something I want to do so I set it up and since then it has taken off and has been really busy – I will keep it continuing but within the right times. I enjoy it but I’ve had to scale back massively because especially during pre-season it will be intense and apart from training, I will probably just eat and sleep a lot of the time”.