Gavin Reilly believes the timing couldn’t be better for his return to Queen of the South.
The striker, who burst on to the Palmerston scene as a teenager in his first spell, now finds himself as one of the senior players in Wullie Gibson’s
new-look squad.
The 29-year-old hitman said: “It’s an exciting project to be part of. I’m one of the oldest ones in the team so hopefully my experience can help. If you take the gaffer out of it then I’m the oldest player in the squad.”
And he joked: “It’s hard to take because I’m still under 30!
“It’s good to be back. The gaffer got in touch as soon as the season ended and I always wanted to come back. I’ve played alongside the gaffer and now I’m looking forward to working under him.
“I had to assess all the options as I have a young family to look after and I did have to weigh things up.
“But at the end of the day I thought this was the best option. It was disappointing for the club to get relegated last season and hopefully we can bounce back as quick as we can.”
Reilly was one of several notable players to be a part of Queens league and cup double success of the 2012/13 season.
At the time the Doonhamers went into that season off the back of relegation and found themselves in Division Two for the first time in 10 years.
A decade on, the South find history repeating itself in a tougher league but Reilly said he is also stronger than he was the last time he played in Dumfries.
He said: “We want to be competitive in this league. I think it’s going to be hard as there are obviously good teams in League One but if we can add another couple of players then there’s no reason why we can’t be challenging at the top.
“There are a lot of younger players and they’re a very good standard, they will be helping and pushing us first-team players.
“There’s the makings of a good squad already and I’m looking forward to the first games coming up.
“I’m definitely physically stronger than my last spell here, I was quite slight then.
“I have a lot of appearances under my belt and hopefully a few more goals to add to that. I’m an all-round better player.”
Reilly left Palmerston to sign for Hearts and then moved on to St Mirren where he helped them win the Scottish Championship.
Stints in England with Bristol Rovers and Carlisle United saw him progress back towards Scotland before he signed with Livingston.
So how does he sum up his career since he left Queens? He said: “There’s been up and downs. Definitely a good few ups but a good couple of downs, particularly the last two seasons take away last season. It was good to get out and get games and score a couple of goals last season.
“Apart from that going down south, especially the second year, I picked up a bad injury at the tail of the year before Covid. Then I went to Carlisle but I still wasn’t over that injury and never really got a lot of game time until I went to Livingston. Then Covid hit and it was disaster. I got it and had to isolate and then suffered another bad injury. I’m over that now. Last year proved that in terms of getting game time.
“I’m in a good place to get a full pre-season under my belt.”
