Uefa Cup beckons for Gordon Chisholm’s ‘bumpkins’

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Queen of the South reached the Scottish Cup final for the first time by beating Aberdeen 4-3 in a pulsating match at Hampden Park on Saturday. The Irn-Bru first division club will be guaranteed a place in the Uefa Cup next season if Rangers defeat St Johstone in the other semi-final on Sunday. Rangers, who will play in the Champions League next season, beat Partick Thistle 2-0 at Firhill yesterday.

“It’s been 58 years since we were at a semi-final, but this is amazing,” Gordon Chisholm, the Queen of the South manager, said. “It is my best moment in football. I’m so proud. The spirit of my boys is fantastic and it showed as we outfought a Premier League team. Watching that game was a nightmare. Every time we got our noses in front, they kept clawing it back.”

Chisholm took over at Queen of the South only last summer, burning to prove himself after being dismissed by Dundee United not long after he had guided them to the 2005 Scottish Cup final, where they lost to Celtic. The fans of the only British club to be listed in the Bible must thank the good Lord for the day Chisholm walked in.

The messianic acclaim that the 10,000 supporters from Dumfries gave to Chisholm and his players long after Kenny Clark, the referee, had brought an epic encounter to an end, illustrated an incredulity that a long trek through a barren desert had ended with them reaching the promised land. A second division title win and the Challenge Cup are the only items to trouble the Palmerston Park trophy room since the club were formed in 1919.

Chisholm and David Rae, the 70-year-old chairman, were locked in an emotional embrace on the Hampden Park pitch. It was Rae’s gut instinct to agree to Chisholm’s demand when he took the job that his players should train in Glasgow, rather than force many of them to make the 180-mile round trip to Dumfries.

“It’s the only way people will get rid of the idea of the old Queen of the South, the idea of farming country bumpkins, and think of them as a professional outfit,” Chisholm said before the semi-final. He insisted that he did not want to steal the club’s identity; his move may have created a new one.

When John Stewart’s 60th-minute shot flew into the net to decide this contest, Queen of the South knew that it was their day. Jimmy Calderwood was furious after his Aberdeen team lost a cup semi-final for the second time this season. “Semi-final defeats are the hardest to take,” he said.