QUEEN'S Park have defended the state of the Hampden Park playing surface and said they have no intention of playing their home matches anywhere else. While there has been increasing criticism in recent months of the practice of using the famous Mount Florida stadium to house League One matches, the Spiders insist that no other club in the world would be asked to play matches away from a stadium they own, and the venue was at its best at the recent Scottish Cup final and Scotland match against England. The issue has added currency as Tottenham Hotspur prepare to play their home league matches at Wembley, England's national stadium.

"You wouldn't say to any other club who owns their own stadium that they can't play their home games there," Dr Alan Hutchison, the president of Queen's Park, told Sky Sports. "We have had a good reciprocal arrangement with the SFA over many years and as for the arguments surrounding the state of the pitch, well anyone who was at the Sottish Cup final or the international match against Slovenia would have seen a pitch that is in excellent condition."

Christine Wright, the general manager of Queen's Park, advised her counterparts at Spurs to keep lines of communication open. "It is fantastic to be able to play at the national stadium, it is great for the players, great for the visiting teams," he said. "So many people get to experience it that it can only be good for Scottish football.

"The most important bit of advice is to communicate and understand how important the other events at the stadium are to the commercial side of it," she added. "But keep the relationship as friendly as possible. We do face several challenges playing at Hampden, we have to be flexible in our approach. Obviously there are international games played there, concerts there, we need to be flexible in how we deal with it. The other challenge is for the SPFL, they need to schedule all our fixtures around what else is happening at the national stadium."