Queen’s Park’s search for a new head coach gathered pace this week and defender Scott Gibson is hoping that the club’s new leader keeps faith in him.
The 20-year-old has just experienced the first change in management in his career after Gardner Speirs left Hampden by mutual consent just before Christmas and he is now looking to help whoever comes in as his replacement to lift the Spiders off the foot of the League 2 table.
Gibson said: “The past few weeks have been difficult after losing the gaffer but we have become tighter as a squad as a result. We will keep doing our best until whoever is appointed as the new manager comes in.”
“Like a lot of players at Queen’s park it is my first experience of a manager moving on and it is not a nice time as everyone is unsettled. Hopefully getting a good result against Clyde last Saturday is a turning point in our season.”
A couple of well-known faces at Hampden are in temporary charge just now as long serving former skipper and now Committee member Richard Sinclair and present day captain Tony Quinn have joined up with Speirs’ assistant Bobby Dickson as the interim management team.
Gibson said: “Richard has come in to take over the running of things just now and he has given me a couple of starts which has been great. I have worked with ‘Sinky’ a lot over the past couple of seasons in the reserves and he has been great with me. He has opted to pick me so I will be giving everything for him.”
“It helps me that he used to play in central defence as well. He has a lot of experience after playing for many years at this club and it is great that he is passing that on just now in charge of the first team.”
Gibson was with the youth programmes at Rangers and Hamilton Accies before heading to the Spiders and after being on the fringes of the first team in the past couple of years he knows this is a key time for him.
“I have been at Queen’s since joining their under-17 side so this will be my fifth season,” said Gibson before adding: “Hopefully this year will see me establish myself in the first team. It is my second year in the first team pool and hopefully I am making my breakthrough now and I am going to stay there.”
“My goal came up at Montrose in a game we won 2-1 and it was a close range effort however I was delighted with it. Last season I played in a few games and I even scored a winning goal however I have never had a consistent run of starts in the team.”
Last Saturday’s success at Broadwood was just Queen’s Park’s second win of the season and they sit at the bottom of the SPFL 10 points adrift of second bottom Elgin.
A fifth assault on the promotion Play-Offs is very probably beyond Queen’s now however they remain hopeful of a climb up the table if they can build on their 2-1 Cumbernauld success.
Gibson said: “The Clyde game was good although we did not start it well and found ourselves a goal down at half time. Hopefully by coming back and winning it 2-1 everyone could see how together the boys are following recent events.”
“Clyde had been doing well in the league this season but we were poor in the first half and probably deserved to be behind. Sinky had a word with the boys at half time, in fact he had quite a few words, as we were not going about our business correctly. “
“When he stopped talking we were expecting our Quinno to fill in the gaps, however thankfully he was out warming up as a substitute. The only reason he never joined in giving us a hard time was because he was out on the pitch.”
The chat from Sinclair paid off as Gibson explained: “We went back out and gave it our all. We got a penalty in the second half after Blair Spittal had been brought down. Tony normally takes them however no-one was getting the ball off Blair. He practices penalties after every single training session and he was always going to take it with Tony not around.”
“He made a good job of it and we could have had another penalty shortly afterwards when Liam Gormley went down however we never got that one. We were growing in confidence and Thomas Collins came up with a second goal to put us ahead.”
It was a case of seeing things out with Gibson saying: “After not being ahead in a game with 89 minutes played for so long, everyone was a bit nervous. I was looking up at the scoreboard and time was dragging but thankfully we held on.”
It was a first league win of the season from Gibson who said: “I was on the bench the night we won up at Montrose in our only win this season so winning felt great last Saturday.”
No new manager will be in place for the game with Stirling Albion on Saturday with Gibson saying: “We will keep looking to Sinky as long as he is in charge and we will try to get the results under him that will move us up the table. We are in double figures now points wise so we have a platform to attack teams above us.”
“It is certainly a season of change at the club as we are now training over at Toryglen and playing at Airdrie as opposed to training at Lesser Hampden and playing at Hampden. They are both good facilities and we will just work as hard there as we would have done had we been at home.”
Despite a disappointing run with the first team at Scotland’s oldest club Gibson could end up with a medal to mark this season as Queen’s Park reserve side will be crowned Champions of the first ever SPFL Reserve League if they defeat Raith Rovers and Ayr United in their last two remaining games.”
“I have played a lot in our reserve side this season and we have done really well. Tony takes the reserves along with Billy Ogilvie and if we win our last two games we will win the SPFL Reserve League which would be a great achievement.”
“Hopefully that would be another sign that things are looking up for Queen’s Park.”
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