The Queen's Park revolution behind the scenes as Owen Coyle reveals brutal decisions over promotion heroes

Owen Coyle enjoyed two minutes of celebration with his Queen’s Park players in the aftermath of their sensational Championship play-off victory at Airdrie’s Excelsior Stadium last month. Then walked out of the dressing room to let them enjoy the moment.

He knew what was coming down the track for some of the squad who had finished fourth in League One, yet still managed to beat Dunfermline from the division above and an Airdrie side who had ended 21 points in front of Queen’s. Even as the players sprayed their champagne, Coyle knew that for players such as captain Michael Doyle plus stalwarts Peter Grant, Bob McHugh, Grant Gillespie and Jai Quitongo, there would be no place for them in the next stage of the Spiders’ journey from amateur to professional to back-to-back promotions, which now see them in the second tier.

The aim is to keep climbing and become an established Premiership outfit. That’s why vastly experienced Coyle was lured from a title-winning stint in India and the 55-year-old, who managed Bolton as well as Burnley in the Premier League for three years, knew from the start tough decisions had to be taken.

“It was very difficult,” he told Record Sport as he looked out over the club’s new training facility at Lochinch in Glasgow’s Pollok Park. “The human side of it comes in. That day we beat Airdrie, the players were in the dressing room celebrating like mad and I only stayed inside with them for a minute or so before I came out. Leeann and Marijn were just going in and I told them I wanted to let the boys enjoy themselves.

“The truth of the matter is, although I was delighted to have won promotion, I knew a lot of those boys weren’t going to be with me next season and I didn’t want to be two-faced about