“They fly players in from Scotland, our lads get the bus from Stranmillis or the Holylands.”

That occasion was the 2014 Irish Cup semi-final. The student side, playing in the third tier of the Irish League, had made one of the most memorable runs to the semi-finals in the competition’s history, where they played top-flight Ballymena United at the Oval.

It was a last-four tie they would go on to lose 3-0 but those memories will be etched in the minds of everyone involved with Queen’s for a long, long time.

And those recollections will be heightened this weekend when, almost a decade on, the Premier Intermediate League side will once again face the Sky Blues in the Irish Cup, this time in the fifth round and at their south Belfast home of the Dub.

Current Queen’s manager James Lavery captained the side on that historic surge to the last four. The home quarter-final win over Championship side Bangor, when two spectacular Mark Prenter free-kicks inspired the students to a 3-2 victory, stands out for him when reflecting on the journey to the last four.

“We had only moved back to the Dub about a year before, having played at Newforge for a long time,” recalled Lavery, who became Queen’s manager in 2022 after serving as Thompson’s assistant for five years and as a player for nine years before that.

“That was the first really big occasion that we had at the ground, though we have had plenty since as the Dub has become a really tough place for big teams to visit.

“The quarter-final was a match that had everything – spectacular free kicks, a penalty, a sending off. I had a few nervy moments too because I gave a penalty away in the final few minutes that allowed them to make it 3-2. Thankfully we held on.”

‘We fully deserved place in semi-final’

While now fully appreciating the ‘David v Goliath’ nature of the semi-final against Ballymena that his manager at the time referred to, Lavery said it was a different feeling back then.

“It’s when we look back now, and think about how big and magical the Irish Cup is, that you realise the magnitude of what we did by getting to the semi-final,” continued the former striker, whose team currently sit second in the PIL table, level on points with leaders Limavady United.

“It was mad in one way but when you were inside the bubble, as I was at the time, it actually didn’t seem that mad. We beat Lurgan Celtic in the fourth round then played Limavady, Distillery and Bangor. They were all games that we felt we could win and there was nobody who could have come away from any of those games feeling like we got lucky in them.

“So while we might have got the rub of the green with the draw, we definitely deserved to take our place in the last four.”

On the match itself and the build-up to it, Lavery was happy that he and his team-mates played well in front of what would have been the biggest crowd most of the Queen’s players had ever performed in front of.

“Peter [Thompson, then manager] did a lot of interviews ahead of the game and I did a few too. I felt my job as captain, though, was to keep reminding the players that we deserved to be there, and that we had a chance to go and win another game of football,” he explained.

“We played well. There wasn’t much between the sides until the second half when they took control, but they will have known that they were in a proper game. We didn’t give them anything for free.”

Queen’s ball boy-come-captain recalls big occasion ‘buzz’

While the current Queen’s manager was captain in that semi-final a decade ago, the current club captain was also involved, even though he was 17 and still at school at the time.

Matty Hughes was a pupil at Our Lady and St Patrick’s College Knock, and got an unexpected call from two of his teachers – one being the late Frankie Wilson and the other Neil McGaughey, a Queen’s coach at the time – to be a ball boy at the game.

“Our school has always had a great association with Queen’s and I couldn’t turn down the chance to be a ball boy at an Irish Cup semi-final,” said Hughes, who recently returned to full training from a second ACL injury and is hoping to be fit enough to be involved against Ballymena on Saturday.

“I got to meet with the team and have breakfast, then travel on the team bus with the players, so I was buzzing. I remember how massive the crowd was. The whole of the main stand was nearly full with Queen’s family and friends, and the university had done a big drive to get a lot of students to attend, while Ballymena always have a big following.

“It was a huge moment in the history of the club and the current group of players now want to go and write their own history by beating Ballymena. I think we are quietly confident we can.”

‘Semi-final run gave club something to cling on to’

The transformation that Queen’s has gone through since that 2014 run to the semi-finals has been seismic. They landed the club’s first trophy when they lifted the Intermediate Cup at Windsor Park in 2018, enjoyed a three-year spell in the Championship and, in 2020, produced even more Irish Cup heroics.

Drawn at home to Irish Premiership champions Linfield in round five, the students produced one of the greatest shocks in the competition’s history by winning 2-1 and following it up by running Glentoran desperately close at the same ground in the next round, narrowly losing 3-2.

Having battled through four ties to reach Saturday’s fifth-round visit of the Sky Blues, Lavery believes the achievements of the 2014 side have inspired the club’s upturn in fortunes ever since.

“I think what it did was let us know that these things are possible. It is not beyond our reach.

“Until then the club didn’t have anything like that to look back on or to cling on to, but those players proved that we can have a real go at competitions, excite people and attract big crowds. At that time we were slowly climbing away from being in relegation battles to being more mid-table.

“It helped us to think that we could build something and go and try to win things. It gave us the appetite to do that, as well as raising the profile of the club and attracting better players.”

And what of Saturday’s visit of the Sky Blues – could another shock be on the cards?

“It will be very difficult but it is possible. We have faced big tasks at the Dub before. We know they are big favourites for the game and we understand that, but we will be ready for it. We have done it before and the goal is to do it again.

“The Dub is one of the grounds where magic can happen on Irish Cup days. The magic has happened there before and we are just hopeful that it happens again on Saturday.”