In a swirling Berwickshire wind and with the rain teeming down on the Shielfield surface, neither side had much opportunity to play any football in the early stages. Neither side were creating much before an awful error by Berwick's veteran keeper Garry O'Connor helped Queen's take the lead.
A through ball from Mark Ferry slid down the famous Berwick slope and evaded two defenders, O'Connor looked set to intercept the pass on the edge of the eighteen yard box but he completely missed it and in nipped Stuart McGrady to slide the ball home from six yards to send the incredibly noisy Spiders support wild on the terracing.
Berwick began to look more of a threat after McGrady's first strike in a Queen's jersey, and Tony Quinn made a good block to deny Iain Thomson a clean sight at goal from twelve yards. There was little more goalmouth action in the first half but Mark Ferry had a golden chance to double the lead on 40 minutes when played up the left by Shaun Molloy but his curling right foot effort ended up well over the Berwick bar.
Early in the second half, Scott Murray missed a simple catch from a low Ian Thomson cross and only the alertness at the back post of the Queen's defence spared the blushes of the rookie Spiders keeper. Queen's were playing some good stuff but seemed to be scared to have a pop at goal. Shaun Molloy, Mark Ferry and Paul Cairney all passed instead of striking and eventually McGrady curled a left footer narrowly wide of the far post.
Off went Stuart Kettlewell with a knee injury and suddenly Berwick were getting a lot more space in the midfield and they got their leveller less than 3 minutes after Kettlewell's leaving the park. Kevin Davison easily outstripped sub Ronald for pace and his bending cross was acrobattically headed home by David Greenhill. Berwick should have made it two moments later, another Greenhill header but Scott Murray made a quite simply stunning point blank stop to deny the creative midfield player.
Queen's could have won it in the 90th minute, but after a quite simply stunning run by Molloy he played in Trouten, Trouten delayed the return pass too long and by the time he had flicked the ball back through to Shaun, who duly stuck the ball under O'Connor and into the net, he was half a yard offside. Honours even it ended, a fair result.
QUEEN'S PARK: Scott Murray, Paul Paton, Shaun Molloy, Richard Sinclair, Damiano Agostini, Alan Trouten, Stuart Kettlewell y (Paul Ronald), Paul Cairney, Tony Quinn y, Stuart McGrady g, Mark Ferry
SUBS NOT USED: Andy Boslem, Robert Dunn, Martin Ure, Alexander Cowie
GOALSCORER: Stuart McGrady (24)
BOOKED: Stuart Kettlewell, Tony Quinn
REFEREE: Crawford Allan
ATTENDANCE: 455
MAN OF THE MATCH: Shaun Molloy
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