WHATEVER THE outcome of the Scottish Cup final on Saturday, Steve Tosh will make a point of stashing his medal somewhere his children can see it. The Queen of the South midfielder won't be able to place it alongside the runners-up medal he picked up for Gretna when they lost to Hearts two years ago.
Or the Second Division championship medal he earned at the club. As a gesture, he left them with the Raydale Park club to put on display, alongside his Third Division winners' badge. Just as seems Gretna's fate, his medals have disappeared.
"I lef
t them for quite a bit and didn't think about it too much," he says. "I might have left them until one of my kids asked for them. But I was prompted to phone about them when the administrators sent a creditors' list of what they were trying to do to recoup some of the money. One of the things was the memorabilia, which they said had been sent away to be valued. I rang to say that my medals belonged to me rather than the club and a nice lady told me they could only find one, ironically the Third Division one.
"I suppose it was my own fault for giving something to a club that at the time was in financial strife. I posed the question whether the administrators had sold my cup final medal but I dare say when things were going from bad to worse someone snaffled it. I don't think anyone from the football club has taken it but maybe people were about during administration who could get to certain areas... and there are people like that all over the world.
"I've got kids and it's sad because I did it because other winners' medals I've got on the house are just in boxes, which tends to happen when you move from house to house. I thought this one was for safekeeping but maybe it would have been better in a box in the garage."
BIBLICAL BACKING FOR SCOTLAND'S FIRST INTERNATIONAL TROPHY WINNERSTHE phrase "queen of the south" was first used to describe the Dumfries area in an election address in 1857 by politician David Dunbar. An early Queen of the South Wanderers played in the 1870s, then when three local teams got together in 1919 they adopted the name without the Wanderers.
The claim to be the only team mentioned in the bible comes from Luke 11.31 and Matthew 12.42: "The queen of the south shall rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here."
Queens have a claim to be the first Scottish team to win an international trophy. The club got special permission to tour Europe and North Africa in 1936, playing 11 games in France, Italy and Luxembourg and winning a four-team tournament in Algiers against local and Spanish opposition.
Rangers became the first Scottish Cup holders since 1901 to be dumped out of the tournament at the first round when they lost 1-0 at Palmerston Park in 1937. Rangers got revenge in 1976, winning 5-0 away in the quarter-final. In between Rangers beat Queens in the 1950 cup semi-final.
Billy Houliston was capped three times for Scotland, including the famous 3-1 win against England at Wembley in 1950.
The full article contains 595 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
