Eleven months was all Trebor Mahtal needed to win his second Swiss title with Young Boys, and tick letter Y off his Alphabet Challenge. That meant the 73-year-old Zambian now only had more letters to tick off his challenge: C, D, F, G, H, I, K, Q and X.
Upon resigning from the Swiss side, a couple of obvious options jumped out – while his former club Dortmund and PSG, who he also couldn’t manage having completed P at Perak, offered unsolicited interviews. One club that would tick one of the most troublesome letters was quick to offer an interview and swiftly made Mahtal an offer. And he decided to take on a monumental new challenge in a new country.
Who Are Queen’s Park?
Queen’s Park FC is a professional club based in Glasgow. It’s the oldest football club in Scotland, having been founded in 1867, and the 10th oldest in the world. The club retained amateur status through its first 152 years of being, only voting to go professional in November 2019. Queen’s Park is also the only Scottish team to have played in the English FA Cup Final, way back in 1884 and 1885, and has also won 10 Scottish Cups, most recently in 1893. However, it’s never been champions of Scotland.
Intriguingly, Queen’s Park – nicknamed The Spiders due to their black and white hoops – is widely credited with introducing a scientific approach to team-based pressing, which became known as “combination football.” The approach, developed in the very early days of football, had a significant impact on the “dribbling and backing up” style used by the best English sides. If that wasn’t prestigious enough, Queen’s Park play at the Scottish national stadium, the 64,183-capacity Hampden Park. That’s supported by a strong infrastructure of 17 youth recruitment, 16 youth facilities and junior coaching and 15 training facilities. Mahtal walks into a club with around £6m in the bank and spending £50k of its £80k weekly wage budget, so the finances are solid but not great.
The Scottish league is one of the most intriguing in Europe in this save. Celtic and Rangers dominated the early years before Celtic won 10 in a row between 2042 and 2051. However, they haven’t won it since and finished 3rd in the last two seasons. Cash-rich Aberdeen, who had a tycoon takeover in 2047, are now the dominant force, winning the last five titles after Hibs won their first for 100 years in 2052. The top tier now features unusual names like Kelty Hearts, Queen of the South, Raith Rovers and Queen’s Park, who’ve been a Premiership mainstay since 2042 with a highest finish of 6th in 2051.
The best player at Queen’s Park is attacker Carlo Tidser, along with center backs Omar Marklund and James Chapman, midfielders Ryan Grant and Joe Saunders and former West Ham winger Lex Rasulo. However, the big appeal was a mass of promising youngsters led by striker Richard Napier and goalkeeper Ewan McDonald. And the best prospects are striker Michael Turner, centre back Jack Thompson, winger Fraser Burke, New Zealand left back Josh Mata, midfielders Craig Leslie and Euan Sibbald and winger Shaun Warnock.
Mahtal had very little time or money with which to start scouting, let alone recruit players – which wasn’t helped by Tidser and Marklund rejecting £6m plus moves to England and Italy. So he stuck with what he had and aimed to develop the club’s promising youngsters, starting the season with 12 teenagers in a squad with an average age of just 22. He devised a take on a 4-4-2 with Tidser playing in behind Napier, Rasulo and Burke providing the wide threats, Saunders learning to play in a deeper midfield role alongside Grant and young full backs Mata and Mullen being given big opportunities. Mahtal knew there would be some struggles but hoped his youngsters could quickly begin to realise their massive potential.
Putting Faith In Youth In Scotland
A lack of transfer activity saw Queen’s Park installed as relegation favourites with title odds of 700/1 alongside promoted Partick Thistle. Champions Aberdeen, who spent £24m in the summer and spend £99m per year on wages, nearly double the next biggest spenders, are 4/9 favourites to win a sixth successive title, followed by Hibs (9/2), Celtic (11/1) and Rangers (15/1). Queen’s Park, meanwhile, have the lowest wage bill in the league of just £2.38m, 43 times less than Aberdeen!
Mahtal’s time in Scotland began by upsetting the odds as Burke laid on Tidser and Rasulo goals in a fully deserved 2-1 win at Rangers. His first home game saw champions Aberdeen come to town and easily win 3-0 and a tough start continued as they visited Hibs and lost 3-1. But they got points on the board with a draw against Kilmarnock before Napier nicked a late win over Partick, scored again in a 2-1 win at Motherwell and scored the only goal at home to Greenock Morton to take his side 4th and earn Mahtal the September manager of the month award.
Those early games suggested Queen’s Park’s youngsters had enough to beat the Scottish Premiership’s lesser sides but couldn’t really get close to what was now the big four. That trend continued as they got dominated 4-0 at home to Celtic and 6-1 at Aberdeen, either side of Burke scoring the only goal at Raith. That prompted Mahtal to test out a 4-5-1 at home to Hibernian, which worked nicely as Napier scored the only goal. It also worked well as Napier scored twice in a comfortable 3-0 win over Motherwell.
Queen’s Park’s impressive form against the non-big-four sides saw them surge up the table. And, despite a tricky spell in December, they headed into the new year sitting 4th on 36 points, realistically well clear of any relegation concerns.
Progression In The Cups
Mahtal’s time in Scotland actually began with the League Cup, in which they breezed through the group by beating Arbroath, Dundee, East Fife and Peterhead led by Napier’s 7 goals. Mahtal celebrated 1,500 games in management by defeating Championship side Livingston on penalties before losing 4-2 at Celtic in the quarters. In the final, Hibs beat Aberdeen 2-1.
In the Scottish Cup, they edged past Arbroath on penalties, a Napier brace led a 4-1 win at Airdrie and beat affiliate side Stirling 2-1 away to reach the semi finals for the third time in this save. They drew Hibs in the semis, who they’d only beaten twice in 12 meetings in the last four years, but performed well to draw 0-0 then lose 2-1 in extra time. Raith upset Celtic in the other semi and caused a huge upset by beating Hibs on penalties t win their first Scottish Cup!
Building On A Strong Start
Premier League sides circled some of Mahtal’s better players in January, and he used a bidding war to negotiate a pretty obscene £7.5m from Fulham for Rasulo. The poor form at the end of 2057 carried on into 2058 as an injury-hit side got thrashed 5-2 at Rangers and lost 2-0 to two penalties at Hibs. Mahtal read the riot act to his underperforming players, and they responded with Napier scoring both in a 2-0 win over Kilmarnock and the only goal at home to struggling Partick.
That established Queen’s Park in the top half, and a 2-1 win at Dundee United built a solid 11-point gap back to 6th place. And they even climbed level with Rangers heading into the Championship Group. However, that meant they now had to play all the big four in the final five games, and they lost 1-0 at home to Rangers and 5-1 at Celtic. But the big game was the middle one, and Queen’s Park confirmed their highest-ever finish as Saunders and Tidser secured a 2-1 win over 10-man Dundee United.
Queen’s Park finished in an impressive 5th place on 56 points, only 4 points back from Rangers but 24 behind 3rd-placed Hibs and 31 behind champions Celtic. They finished with 16 wins, 8 draws and 14 defeats, only scoring 41, which only relegated Partick scored fewer than, and conceding 58. But the excellent Napier was the 3rd-top scorer with 18 goals in 38 games.
Youngsters Overperform In Mahtal’s First Season
Mahtal’s midas touch and focus on developing young players delivered the best-ever finish in Queen’s Park history. There was no doubt they were way off the pace of the big four in Scotland, having only managed to beat Rangers and Hibs once apiece. That said, they didn’t lost a single game all season against teams outside the top four, which highlights the sheer gulf in class in the league.
The star of the season was undoubtedly Napier, who smashed the club record for most goals in a season. He bagged 30 in 48, surpassing the 27 scored by Jaspar Powell in 2038/39. Tidser delivered 12 goals and 7 assists, but Mahtal was a little underwhelmed by his contribution. No other player scored more than 5 goals, but Burke delivered a club-high 12 assists.
It was clear where Mahtal had to strengthen if they were to bridge the gap to the top four. They needed more goal threat and they had to tighten up at the back. However, there was clear progression being made by their young players and they didn’t have a huge amount of money to throw at it.
Could Mahtal close the gap to Scotland’s big four? Join us on Monday to find out!
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