FCN Chairman in Stadium for Fans swap as Queens lose in Denmark |
Carlsberg don’t do football supporters, but if they did they wouldn’t be doing themselves a disservice by choosing those that follow Queen of the South Football Club. Colourful, noisy, friendly and funny are just a few of the adjectives which could be harnessed to describe our Fans in Farum. The cynical would argue we took so many fans because it would be our only ever European adventure, a once in a lifetime journey to Scandinavia, to follow our hard earned, paid for, not ‘living it’ but an engulfing, squeezing every bit of it, rollercoaster ride of a dream to Platini’s, soon to be closed-shop, Paradise. Most went simply because it was another game to support their team. Tage Nielsen, the CEO of FC Nordsjaelland said ‘I would trade our stadium and fine facilities for your fans anytime, they are absolutely outstanding. I hope everybody around the club appreciates that.’
Full letter here http://www.qosfc.com/TeamNews/ViewFullStory/tabid/151/selectmoduleid/498/ArticleID/147/reftab/36/Default.aspx
Certainly FC Nordsjaelland got the better deal on the finance front. Hardly any of their fans dusted down their passports to make the trip to Airdrie whereas the Blue & White army not only spent a rumoured �13,000 in the Dubliner but, given the queues, FC Nordsjaelland must have made a fortune from ticket sales and club shop souvenirs. The queue in front of their club shop never died down until near kick off time as Queens fans bought anything from scarves, pennants, souvenir programmes and even FC Nordsjaelland football tops. No wonder Tage wants us back!! 
Both the Dubliner pub and the Scottish Pub in the Square turned blue & white from Sunday onwards as more and more Queens fans arrived in Copenhagen. The Dubliner became a home from home for most with reduced beer prices a comforting buffer against the weakness of the pound against the Danish Kroner. When you stand google-eyed waiting for change from a fiver for a small diet coke and none is forthcoming you know you’re not in Greens anymore.
As the number of fans increased through Monday afternoon into the evening it was great to see some well kent faces appearing. As the singing started more and more Danes and the everlasting trail of bemused tourists started to notice that something strange was happening. Soon Danes, Japanese and even Australian ex-pat Brechin City supporters started asking why we were there, where were we from, where’s Dumfries etc. etc. Due to translation problems a few tourists left thinking we were playing New Zealand at American Football but it didn’t really matter. The pre-match celebrations went on long into Monday night and even Davie Rae appeared to join in the fun.
On matchday there must have been a few sare heids and certainly a few of us went to the bank to remortgage our houses in order to go down the diet coke route for a wee while. However, the pubs were soon in full swing again. The Danes had kindly laid on buses in the main square to take us to Farum. Their business managers quite, a sharp cookie as, knowing that FCN’s lovely little ground is in the middle of nowhere, having arrived some 3hrs + before kick off the FCN shop and bar took a bit of a hammering. FCN’s ground is certainly modern looking with conferencing facilities, a health centre/gym, a squash club and tennis centre. The foyer and bar area were nice and as Queens fans spilled out onto the concourse in front of the stadium there were no massed ranks of police with horses to put everyone on edge. No glowing green ‘officials’ to tell us we couldn’t do this or do that. The fans were treated like adults and the fans behaved like adults. All friendly stuff. A jazz band welcomed us round to the away end. Even the turnstile official said ‘Enjoy the game’ as we went through. Did they not know that they are supposed to grimace as if you’re a nuisance to them, growl when you haven’t got the exact money and then tut when you can’t operate the two tonne turnstile properly. Inside they had hot dogs, non alcoholic beer and smiles on their faces. Yes FCN’s ground was nearly a fans football nirvana. The ONLY thing missing was home fans. Where were they all? 5 minutes before kick off and it was like playing Rangers at Hampden. No opposition supporters to hear our singing and no one to sing back at us. Unlike the Gers supporters though, the FCN fans never turned up. Just over 2,000 of them managed to echo themselves into the other 3 sides of the stadium and, just to add to the atmosphere, spread themselves thinly enough so that even if they were singing (a mute point if you’ll pardon the pun!) you couldn’t have heard them. Given they might have been playing AC Milan in the next round they all seemed just a bit less than excited. Maybe the jazz music was mellowing them to a comatose state or maybe they were confident that after winning 2-1 in the away leg they would crush Queens just like they had crushed their Cup opponents 9-1 at the weekend. Or maybe they just didn’t care. No wonder FCN’sCEO Tage wants us. I’m sure it would be cheaper to rent us for a couple of home games to make a bit of noise for them J
They certainly woke up once Bob Harris rocketed a 30 yard beauty two minutes into the game. This was the Queens we’ve grown to know and love over the last year or so. No matter whether we’re playing Linlithgow Rose in the rain and fog or are two-nil down to Rangers in the Cup Final, Chis’s developed a team who just never give up. Here we were again, in with a chance and the San Siro dream was alive again. Queens continued to play well in the first half and with a wee bit more composure could have been 2-0 up before the interval. At half-time there was certainly still an air of optimism amongst the Blue Army. If only we could sneak a second goal!! As the second half started FCN came more into the game and as tiredness crept in Stephen Dobbie was introduced to the battle. The new slimline Dobster was holding the ball up well and both Sean O’Connor and Burns came close to giving us the second goal. As time wore on though Chis was forced to through caution to the wind and as we’ve seen so many times on similar occasions as gaps start to appear you leave yourself open to the counter attack. With 5 mins to go we were still 1-0 up. By the 90th minute it was 2-1 to FCN and that was it, finito, our dream of sticking two fingers up at certain people in the football world who thought we were not good enough to even lace the boots of bigger teams and represent Scottish football at this level. Those same teams that our wee club beat on a level playing field to get here.
We’re sorry that we didn’t win. We tried our hardest, sung the loudest and as the fans sung the Railway Line at the end of the match, staying on to cheer their heroes who had tried so hard to give Gordon Smith another nought point three on his bloody coefficient, I couldn’t help but have a tear in my eye thinking this might never happen again. To all the Queens fans that made it to Farum and particularly those who, despite illness, got themselves their to cheer on the team, you were all fantastic. A thousand fans, no arrests, no reports of any trouble and nothing but praise. Absolutely fantastic. To the players and the management team. What can you say. Fantastic effort. For all FCN are at the bottom of the league no one mentioned that they had drawn 1-1 with the league leaders the week before or that they had a couple of million Kroner players in their team. What a brilliant last 8 months Chis and the team have given us. Long may it continue and, if they do close the door on us ever getting to Europe again, then it will be Uefa’s loss not ours!
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