Twelve months ago, Seb Drozd was barely a household name within his own four walls.
Just two minutes after stepping onto the pitch at Ibrox, he seared his moniker into the pantheon of Scottish Cup shock results.
For the current cohort of Rangers supporters, the mention of Drozd triggers the same kind of unwelcome memories as Sammy Reid and Adrian Sprott did for previous generations.
Like Reid in 1967 and Sprott in 1987, match winners for Berwick Rangers and Hamilton Accies respectively in the Ibrox club’s previously most notable calamities in the tournament, Drozd was the headline act of an historic afternoon.
For the 22-year-old striker, it was a textbook once-in-a-lifetime experience. Or was it? Fate has determined that, exactly a year later, he will have the opportunity to relive it and perhaps repeat it.
‘Unreal, man’ is how Drozd succinctly puts it in conversation about Queen’s Park making the trip to Govan on Scottish Cup fifth round business once again.
Goalkeeper Calum Ferrie leads the Queen’s Park celebrations at Ibrox last February
Goalscorer Seb Drozd struggles to take in the magnitude of what he has just achieved at Ibrox
Drozd’s goal proved the difference between the sides… and now he’s dreaming of a repeat
Like everyone else of a Spiders persuasion, he thought it had slipped from their grasp when they lost out on penalties against Stranraer at Stair Park last month.
Drozd and his team-mates were reprieved when it emerged that goalkeeper Lyndon Tas, the shoot-out hero for the League Two side, had been ineligible for the tie after his loan signing from Hearts on the day of the game.
Queen’s Park can genuinely empathise with Stranraer, having fallen foul of a similar player registration blunder three years ago when they fielded Euan Henderson in a fourth round win at Inverness and were ejected from the tournament.
‘We’ve got a little bit of luck,’ admits Drozd, ‘and sometimes that’s what you need in the cup. We now get to go to Ibrox again. We beat Rangers there once, so why not do it again?’.
Most of Drozd’s team-mates from last year, along with boss Callum Davidson, have since moved on. The journeyman nature of the side which stunned Rangers, and precipitated the end of Philippe Clement’s tenure as manager, is summed up by their current places of employment.
Will Tizzard, Josh Scott, Kyle Hurst and Jack Turner, for example, are all now playing in the fifth and sixth tier of English football at Sutton United, Darlington, Scunthorpe and Woking respectively.
Another of the heroes of 2025, however, will join Drozd in attempting to prove that lightning can strike twice.
Ferrie is mobbed by his jubilant team-mates after his late penalty save from James Tavernier
If Drozd’s 69th minute winner from his team’s only attempt at goal, shortly after he had come on as a sub for Hurst, will live forever in Queen’s Park folklore, then so too will the staggering display of goalkeeper Calum Ferrie.
On a day when Rangers had 28 attempts, Ferrie made nine saves, some of them truly exceptional and one of them hugely significant as he kept out James Tavernier’s stoppage-time penalty.
It prompted a crestfallen Clement to observe that the 27-year-old had produced ‘the game of his life’. Reflecting on it now, Ferrie doesn’t disagree.
‘In terms of the magnitude of the game and how it unfolded, it probably was,’ said Ferrie. ‘It’s certainly one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
‘But I probably played better against Partick Thistle two rounds earlier when I made more saves in the game and then in a penalty shoot-out.
‘To save a penalty in the last minute at Ibrox, though, is probably the dream scenario for a goalkeeper, other than scoring a winner with a header up the other end!
‘I was frustrated when the penalty was awarded, because we had held out for so long and defended so well as a team. When VAR didn’t overturn the decision, my instant reaction was to think about extra time and how long a 30 minutes that was going to be for us. But I guessed the right way and the rest is history.’
Rangers skipper Tavernier can’t believe his misfortune as his miss seals an ignominious exit
Although Clement limped on for another two weeks before Rangers finally sacked him, the writing had been on the wall for the Belgian coach in a season which had seen them fall 13 points off the pace being set by Celtic in the Premiership at that stage.
Rangers are now on their third managerial appointment since then, including Barry Ferguson’s spell as Clement’s interim replacement. After the disarray of their start to the season under Russell Martin, the mood music at Ibrox is now far brighter under Danny Rohl.
Ferrie recognises that Rohl’s positive impact means Queen’s Park potentially face less vulnerable opponents this time. Nonetheless, he believes a break from their own struggles in the Championship relegation zone could prove to be a galvanising factor for Sean Crighton’s side.
‘Rangers are in a better position than they were last year, in terms of being in a title fight,’ added Ferrie. ‘But we know how we can go there and make it awkward for them.
‘There is no pressure on Queen’s Park, because we’ve had a lot of luck even getting here after what happened in the last round against Stranraer.
‘The pressure is on Rangers, so that’s something we can hopefully enjoy and play with a bit of freedom.
‘We are playing under a lot of pressure every week in the league with our position in the table at the moment, so this is a game where the boys can forget about that, express themselves and maybe produce a performance which changes their careers.’
Former Rangers manager Philippe Clement survived the loss but departed Ibrox soon after
The Queen’s Park players have faced a high demand for tickets from family and friends this week, with Ferrie looking forward to a rare visit from his older brother Gregor who is a youth football coach in Utah.
‘He is flying over from America for the game,’ said Ferrie. ‘He was very angry with himself that he didn’t make it last year, so he decided to spend the money and come over. He says if I don’t do the same thing again, I have to pay for his flights!
‘He was a better player than me when we were kids and I ended up becoming a goalie because he was five years older and always made me go in goals so he could smash shots at me.’
Ferrie, who has been a consistently excellent performer in the Championship over the past few seasons, will probably need to be at his very best again this afternoon if Queen’s Park are to defy the odds and reach the quarter-finals for a second successive season.
If he can do his job, then he has a sneaking feeling that Drozd is very much in the mood to produce the goods at the other end of the pitch.
‘Seb has been playing with real confidence in recent weeks,’ said Ferrie. ‘He’s got a few goals and assists. He’s a very talented footballer with good technical ability, as he showed in that split second at Ibrox last year.
‘It was a dream scenario for both of us last year and hopefully he can better it and maybe even score two this time.
‘It’s a game for all of us to be excited about. It’s the same for those of us who played last year as it is for the newer lads in the squad who are playing at Ibrox for the first time. I can’t wait.’
