The teenage goalie who became Queen of the South chief executive

Dan Armstrong joined Queen of the South as a 16-year-old goalkeeper with dreams of a playing career.

Twelve years later, he became managing director of the Scottish League 1 team, becoming one of the youngest people to hold such a role in the United Kingdom.

This is not where the 28-year-old, originally from Accrington, imagined he would end up when he first moved north.

But his philosophy of “no problems, only solutions” led him to abandon his playing hopes and take over the management of the Dumfries team.

“I played with him at Burnley’s academy when I was younger but I wasn’t good enough,” he explained.

After this he was offered a trial north of the border with the Queen of the South.

“At that point no one was looking at me as a 5ft 9in goalkeeper,” he said.

“All I wanted to do was be a football player, so when the opportunity came I came to Palmerston and loved it.”

But it didn’t turn out as he hoped.

“I played here for three years but it’s a familiar story again; I was really rubbish and that led to the end of my football career,” he said.

This could have been the end of the road in the sport, as it was for many aspiring footballers, but the Southern Scotland club had other ideas.

During his playing days Dan was “very injured” and with a broken arm, he became involved in the SPFL Trust schools water project, teaching the importance of hydration.

He said the club had so many initiatives on the go that it was able to move quickly from playing games to off-field activities.

“One day the manager called me and said: ‘Frankly, we are not renewing your contract,'” he said.

“I said: ‘I’ve sort of put it together and it’s probably a good decision for everyone involved because I’m not going to be a consistent first-team player at all.'”

But the club wanted to keep him in some capacity and chairman Billy Hewitson offered him a role as community coach.

“I was guessing everything, playing around, and asking a lot of people a lot of questions – and they would be the most ridiculous questions,” Dan admitted.

“But you got an answer and started to form an opinion, saw what other clubs were doing and did a lot of research in my time.

“That’s when we founded the Queen and South Community Trust, which has since gone on to do some amazing work.”

The Doonhamers have been seen reaching out to local people in a variety of ways, including coaching, school visits, mental health initiatives and even running a food bank.

“We want people to engage with sports in a positive way,” Dan said.

His vision and energy helped him become a commercial manager and the club put him through a Master’s degree in business.

Later, When the board announced plans to resign several years ago, became the chief executive.

So what does his average day involve?

He said: “We may have meetings with the community team, what is our vision for this, what do we want to achieve, how are we going to achieve it?

“There could then be a discussion with the Macron kit supplier about what the kits will look like next year.

“So one minute we’re busy feeding children in our region, the next minute we’re on the phone to Italy and Macron is now wondering what the kits will look like.

“There are a lot of different decisions and different conversations.”

He said he was aware of all the community activities as well as the pressure from fans wanting a winning team and hoped to take the Doonhamers “as high as possible”.

They are currently in the play-off places in the third tier of Scottish football.

“It would be a dream if you could see the Queen of the South in the Premier League, an absolute dream,” he said.

“And I don’t understand why you can’t aim for that and strive for that.”

He knows results are “very important,” but he said part of his job is “trying to build a business around results that don’t matter.”

“I’ve never been to a game and I’ve never played in a game I’ve been to – today I don’t mind if the other team wins – because everyone wants to win,” he said.

“There are 42 teams in the SPFL who want to win every week and every weekend they face another team who want to win, so you can’t win every game.”

He said his aim was to improve “year on year” and ensure all parts of the club were performing to the best of their ability.

He may not be playing there anymore, but Dan Armstrong is always working towards that goal.