They counted us all back again - history
Thursday, 20th Mar 2014 21:47 by Clive Whittingham

Ahead of the trip to Middlesbrough on Saturday, LFW looks back on some recent meetings between the two sides, including extracts from the Awayday report that followed Rangers’ 3-0 win here in 2010.

Recent Meetings

QPR 2 Middlesbrough 0, Saturday September 28, 2013, Championship

QPR turned in one of their best performances of the season, hammering another nail into Tony Mowbray’s Middlesbrough coffin in the process, when these sides met for the first time back in September. With Niko Kranjcar in scintillating form the R’s could have scored a hat full but eventually settled for the two they managed before half time. The home team took the lead after just four minutes thanks to a mixture of actually committing decent numbers into the penalty box for a change and some shambolic Middlesbrough defending. When the visitors failed to take several invitations to clear their lines Danny Simpson whipped in a low cross that goalkeeper Jason Steele punched out as far as Barton and his bobbling low shot bounced into the net via half a dozen deflections in a crowded goal mouth. Just after the half hour QPR flooded a chaotic penalty area with bodies, Charlie Austin drew a save from Steele and young centre back Ben Gibson handled a follow up shot from O’Neil playing against his former club. Austin took the kick himself, went the opposite side the one he’d picked for his match winner at Yeovil a week previous, and calmly collected his third goal in four appearances.

QPR: Green 7; Simpson 7, Dunne 8, Hill 7 (Ehmer 79, 7), Assou-Ekotto 7; Carroll 6, Faurlin 7 (Henry 79, 6), Barton 7, Kranjcar 8 (Hoilett 83, -), O’Neil 7; Austin 7

Subs not used: Murphy, Traore, Jenas, Chevanton

Goals: Barton 4 (assisted Simpson), Austin 35 (penalty, handball)

Bookings: O’Neil 6 (foul), Simpson 12 (foul)

Middlesbrough: Steele 6; Friend 6 Gibson 7, Woodgate 6 (Parnaby 46, 6), Richardson 6; Butterfield 6 (Smallwood 67, 6), Leadbitter 6, Varga 5 (Jutkiewicz 46, 6), Whitehead 5; Adomah 6, Kamara 6

Subs not used: Leutwiler, Hoyte, Halliday, Carayol

Bookings: Whitehead 32 (repetitive fouling), Gibson 34 (deliberate handball) Adomah 89 (foul)

Middlesbrough 0 QPR 3, Saturday February 26, 2010, Championship

Rangers wrapped up a second 3-0 win of the season against beleaguered Boro when the sides last met at the Riverside Stadium. Tony Mowbray had taken charge of the north east club since Rangers ran out easy winners at Loftus Road but the former Celtic boss could do little to prevent a repeat with Neil Warnock’s QPR outfit marching emphatically towards promotion. Heidar Helguson’s first goal, after a bustling run from Adel Taarabt, was scrappy but his second, a thumping header from Wayne Routledge’s cross, was an absolute peach. Helguson had been a regular penalty taker for the R’s and when a spot kick was awarded 20 minutes from time a hat trick looked there for the taking until Adel Taarabt insisted he was on spot taking duties that day. Suddenly a comfortable win looked like turning sour as the players argued on the field but Taarabt got his way, scored the kick, and players later joined the travelling supporters on the train back for a memorable, triumphant return to London.

Middlesbrough: Steele 6, McMahon 6, Hines 5, Davies 5 (Haas 82, -), Bennett 7, Emnes 5 (Zemmama 59, 5), Arca 6 (Robson 59, 6), Bailey 5, Taylor 5, McDonald 5, Lita 5

Subs Not Used: Ripley, Boyd, Grounds, Smallwood

Booked: Robson (taking free kick too quickly)

QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 7 (Connolly 78, 6), Hall 7, Shittu 7, Hill 7, Derry 7, Faurlin 8, Routlede 8, Taarabt 8, Buzsaky 7 (Ephraim 69, 6), Helguson 8 (Hulse 84, -)

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Gorkss, Moen, Miller

Booked: Faurlin (foul) Hall (foul)

Goals: Helguson 41 (assisted Taarabt), 61 (assisted Routledge), Taarabt 68 (penalty won Taarabt)

QPR 3 Middlesbrough 0, Saturday September 10, 2010, Championship

The last time these sides met at Loftus Road, Rangers ripped into Gordan Strachan’s team in the second half to secure a fourth comfortable win of the season after just five league games played. Kept scoreless at the break, and almost falling behind when big-money Scottish target man Kris Boyd missed a gilt edged chance from the middle of the six yard box, Rangers were not in the mood for compromise after the break. Heidar Helguson rolled in a penalty, Hogan Ephraim stabbed home another after a fine pass from Taarabt and Jamie Mackie added a third from an Ephraim assist all within the first 14 minutes of the second stanza. Later in the game Bradley Orr left the field injured, and then his replacement Peter Ramage ruptured cruciate knee ligaments, but manager Neil Warnock quickly shipped in Kyle Walker on loan from Spurs who turned out to be an inspired signing and the week only got better with a 3-0 away win at Ipswich on the Tuesday quickly followed with a 2-0 success at Leicester. QPR would go on to be crowned champions.

QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 7 (Ramage 69, 6), Connolly 7, Gorkss 7, Hill 7, Derry 8, Faurlin 8, Mackie 8 (Smith 80, 6), Taarabt 8 (Buzsaky 70, 7), Ephraim 8, Helguson 8

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Leigertwood, Agyemang, Parker

Goals: Helguson 49 (penalty), Ephraim 53 (assisted Taarabt), Mackie 59 (assisted Ephraim)

Middlesbrough: Steele 7, Bates 5, McManus 5, Wheater 5, Robson 4, Tavares 6, O'Neil 5, Bailey 4 (Halliday 79, 6), Kink 6 (Hoyte 55, 6), Boyd 6 (Lita 65, 7), McDonald 6

Subs Not Used: Coyne, Miller, Arca, Smallwood

Booked: Robson (foul)

Middlesbrough 2 QPR 0, Saturday February 23, 2010, Championship

The two thumping 3-0 wins during the promotion season were in stark contrast to QPR’s abject failures against Boro the previous year. Strachan enjoyed his first win as Boro boss in emphatic fashion at Loftus Road — a 5-1 success sparking a meltdown in Jim Magilton’s reign as manager that subsequently saw him sacked after an alleged assault on Akos Buzsaky in the dressing room after a similarly dire defeat at Watford. By the time the R’s travelled north for the return fixture they’d worked their way through Paul Hart and were about to swap Mick Harford for Neil Warnock with relegation starting to loom large. Understandably they put up feable resistance in a dreadful encounter that was settled by two penalties to the home side just before half time. A rash tackle by Peter Ramage on Jeremie Alliadiere set the ball rolling five minutes before the break and that was quickly followed by an equally stupid lunge, this time from Kaspars Gorkss on Leroy Lita. Barry Robson comfortably outwitted loaned goalkeeper Carl Ikeme with both spot kicks. We had an excellent turkey and stuffing roll from a van behind the away end. They also did roast beef.

Middlesbrough: Coyne 7, Naughton 6, Wheater 7, McManus 6, Pogatetz 6 (Taylor 78, 6), Flood 6, O'Neil 6, Robson 8, Aliadiere 5 (Franks 66, 6), Lita 6 (Arca 83, -), Killen 6

Subs Not Used: Jones, Hoyte, Miller, Grounds

Booked: Killen (foul)

Goals: Robson 39 (penalty), 45 (penalty)

QPR: Ikeme 6, Ramage 4, Stewart 5, Gorkss 4, Hill 4 (Borrowdale 53, 4),Cook 6, Leigertwood 7, Faurlin 6 (Taarabt 69, 6), Buzsaky 7, Simpson 6, German 5 (Bent 54, 6)

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Vine, Balanta, Ephraim

Booked: Gorkss (foul)

Previous Results

Head to Head >>> Middlesbrough wins 13 >>> Draws 15 >>> QPR wins 16

2013/14 QPR 2 Middlesbrough 0 (Barton, Austin)

2010/11 Middlesbrough 0 QPR 3 (Helguson 2, Taarabt (pen))

2010/11 QPR 3 Middlesbrough 0 (Helguson pen, Ephraim, Mackie)

2009/10 Middlesbrough 2 QPR 0

2009/10 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 5 (Agyemang)

1997/98 QPR 5 Middlesbrough 0 (Sheron 2, Gallen, Bruce, Vickers og)

1997/98 Middlesbrough 2 QPR 0 (FA Cup replay)

1997/98 QPR 2 Middlesbrough 2 (FA Cup - Gallen, Spencer)

1997/98 Middlesbrough 3 QPR 0

1995/96 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1 (McDonald)

1995/96 Middlesbrough 1 QPR 0

1992/93 Middlesbrough 0 QPR 1 (Ferdinand)

1992/93 QPR 3 Middlesbrough 3 (Ferdinand, Penrice, Sinton)

1988/89 QPR 0 Middlesbrough 0

1988/89 Middlesbrough 1 QPR 0

1982/83 QPR 6 Middlesbrough 1 (Allen 3, Mickelwhite, Flanagan, Gregory)

1982/83 Middlesbrough 2 QPR 1 (Allen)

1981/82 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1** (Stainrod)

1981/82 Middlesbrough 2 QPR 3** (Stainrod 2, Neill)

1978/79 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1 (Goddard)

1978/79 Middlesbrough 0 QPR 2 (Harkouk, Eastoe)

1977/78 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 0 (Busby)

1977/78 Middlesbrough 1 QPR 1 (Busby)

1976/77 Middlesbrough 0 QPR 2 (Masson, Abbott)

1976/77 QPR 3 Middlesbrough 0 (Givens (pen), Masson, Bowles)

1975/76 QPR 4 Middlesbrough 2 (Francis 2 (1pen), Givens, Bowles)

1975/76 Middlesbrough 0 QPR 0

1974/75 QPR 0 Middlesbrough 0

1974/75 Middlesbrough 1 QPR 3 (Bowles, Givens, Rogers)

1972/73 Middlesbrough 0 QPR 0

1972/73 QPR 2 Middlesbrough 2 (Givens, O’Rourke)

1971/72 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 0 (Clement)

1971/72 Middlesbrough 3 QPR 2 (McCulloch, Marsh)

1970/71 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1 (Francis)

1970/71 Middlesbrough 6 QPR 2 (Clement, Marsh)

1969/70 Middlesbrough 1 QPR 0

1969/70 QPR 4 Middlesbrough 0 (Bridges 2, Clark, Clement)

1967/68 Middlesbrough 3 QPR 1 (L Allen)

1967/68 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1 (Marsh)

1966/67 Middlesbrough 2 QPR 2 (Marsh, Lazarus)

1966/67 QPR 4 Middlesbrough 0 (Marsh 3, L Allen)

1946/47 Middlesbrough 3 QPR 1** (Boxshall)

1946/47 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1** (Pattison)

1912/13 Middlesbrough 3 QPR 2**

** - FA Cup

Memorable Match

Middlesbrough 0 QPR 3, Saturday February 26, 2010, Championship

The following are extracts from the LFW Awayday review of the trip to the Riverside Stadium that day — the full piece can be read by clicking here.

In 1921 American philosopher and journalist Lincoln Steffens said of his impressions of the new Soviet government: “I’ve been over into the future, and it works.” This, through a misquote in a book written in 1933 by his wife, coined the phrase “I’ve seen the future, and it works” which has since been hammered to death in films, books, speeches and everyday life. On Saturday, in Middlesbrough of all places, I think I saw a little bit of the future for myself — and it did work, eventually.

Sky deserve everything they’re about to get from the European Union. All the high priced lawyers money can buy haven’t been able to save them from a preliminary ruling by the European Attorney General (and if form stays true this will become the final judgement) that if public houses in an EU country want to buy themselves a television system from another EU country and use it to show football matches then they should be perfectly within their rights to do so. For all the nonsense the EU brings to this country, all the ridiculous human rights bullshit we have to deal with, all the immigration problems it causes it has gone a small fraction of a way to redeeming itself with this ruling.

A month or so ago Neil and myself journeyed up to Burnley and started off in an old favourite haunt of the Northern R’s, the Ministry of Ales. It’s a perfect pub this one — right by the station, walking distance to the ground, a thousand different types of beer, pie and peas available for three quid, and Sky Sports on a plasma screen in the corner. Except this year the latter part was missing. Sky had, overnight a year or so back, told the landlord of this tiny independent pub in Burnley which only does any kind of serious trade on the 23 days a year when Burnley are at home that they were increasing his subscription to their channels ten fold. Reluctantly he shelled out, aware that football fans formed a large part of his trade. The new subscription, totalling many hundreds of pounds more a month he told me over the bar as I ordered my Budvar, only covered him for Sky Sports 1 and 3 which, as the football is almost exclusively on SS1, didn’t bother him greatly. In fact he only noticed he didn’t have Sky Sports 2 when he opened the pub one day and went to put the match on only to find it was on 402. But then so was the next match, and the next match, and the match after that, and all the matches in fact apart from the Sunday games. So he got onto Sky and asked to upgrade his package to Sky Sports Two, only to be told the cost would go up by a third again. So from a subscription cost of around £100 a month he was suddenly being asked to shell out more than a thousand.

This is the problem with a monopoly. Sky own the rights to all the football and whenever competition rules dictate that they have to give up a channel to BT or Virgin they simply move the football onto a channel they don’t have to give away, or create a new channel like Sky Atlantic and stick all their best programmes on there. Now I like having Sky, I enjoy their football coverage, I watch it religiously and think it’s brilliantly presented. I hear the arguments against them and the damage they have done to football and I grumble about our lack of Saturday games at the moment but I wouldn’t want to go back to a time when ITV had the rights and showed one match a week and some highlights at two in the morning. But what Sky has done to pubs, at a time when pubs are really struggling, is scandalous and plenty of chickens are now coming home to roost. I’ve spoken to landlords of bigger city centre pubs who have told me horror stories about annual subscriptions of £16,000 and more — and at the end of the day pubs only get really busy for a match involving “the big four”.

So is it any wonder these landlords are looking elsewhere? The only surprise is the EU has decided to let them, I felt sure Sky would chuck enough money at the situation to make it go away. So on Saturday we went back to Doctor Brown’s, a bar/pub and live music venue just around the corner from Middlesbrough train station and a five minute walk across the railway line to the stadium. We were here last year, everybody had been bloody nice, the drinks were ridiculously cheap and that’s exactly as we found it this year. This is a pub that replenishes stocks of thick cut chips on the bar for you to scoff while waiting to be served every ten minutes or so, and let’s be honest what’s not to like about that? And how about eight 450ml (just over three quarters of a pint) swing top bottles of Grolsch and a bottle of wine for the train for £18? Hell Neil went to a hotel in London for a works do the other week and ordered four drinks that came to £82 — he could probably have bought this pub for that.

Now Doctor Browns as a large town centre (ish) pub would, no doubt, be one of those that Sky would like to charge the cost of a lower league footballer every year for them to show their games. Games that, let’s not forget, the pub has no control over — so they may pay that subscription and find that Middlesbrough are only on three times this season, or that their peak Saturday lunchtime trade is treated to Kilmarnock versus somebody else so abysmally awful and Scottish I can’t even bring myself to think of a named example. And Doctor Browns have said no. And fucking good on them for that.

What they have instead is some system or other that pipes in the Fox Sports, Canal Plus, Italian Sky Calcio and a variety of other Arabic language channels — all of which carry football from this country and just about everywhere else besides. When we arrived Wigan v Man Utd was on — which was odd as Wigan v Man Utd didn’t start for another three hours. Bloody fancy these foreign boxes you know. Anyway despite the fact it was clearly dark, and one of the Man Utd players looked a lot like Cristiano Ronaldo, it took some in our group (no names) a while to realise this was in fact a highlights reel of an earlier fixture. Two blokes on the other side of the pub, judging by their reaction to Wigan’s opening goal, weren’t even that quick off the mark bless em.

Anyway 12.45pm came around and it was time for Swansea v Leeds. The Championship is a well watched league, and English football is popular, so it would be out there somewhere. But where? Landlord started by working his way through the Sky Calcio channels but could only turn up the lunchtime Serie A game, an early Serie B match, some form of football from the United Arab Emirates, and old Villa v Blackburn game, another Serie B match, a screen advertising a Serie B match later in the day and so it went on. And between every change there was an agonising wait of 30 seconds or so where a message displayed on the screen advising: “Please wait while the satellite rotates 13 degrees east.”

I had a vision of a large dish on the side of this pub in Middlesbrough slowly moving around under the power of an electric motor, or better still being operated by two small worker boys who would once have been sent down a mine of some sorts in these parts frantically rotating a handle. Whether either of those things were true I never quite found out. In the end he admitted defeat and tried the Canal Plus, and then Fox, and then we started on the Arabic language channels by which time a quarter of an hour had passed and news was filtering through that Swansea had scored anyway. Ellis remarked that such was the foreign box’s taste for replays of old matches it may have been best to just come back here this time next year and watch the Leeds Swansea game then. It struck me that what Sky are effectively doing is charging you £500 a year for the football and £13,500 a year for the convenience of having a television guide that tells you where the matches are.

We found it in the end, and by we I mean the whole pub because to pass the time we’d taken to building up a steady “whoooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” every time the satellite was turning and then giving out a big “OLE” when the channel displayed. And it felt like we’d earned it. We watched Swansea win 3-0 with some Arabic language commentary and everybody was very pleased — with the football, with the price of the drinks, with the pub, with everything really.

No food, apart from the chips, on offer in the pub but we found our favourite van that offers three different kinds of Sunday roast in a bap on the way to the ground and once again enjoyed one of the best sandwiches (no doubt laced with e-coli) that we get anywhere on our travels in a season. We didn’t, sadly, get to sample the local delicacy — Parmo. I’m told by the Boro fan at work that this is a battery farmed chicken, lightly killed and grilled, then fried, then deep fried, and served smothered in cheese and a white sauce of some sorts (check origin of sauce before consuming) and other goodness. Maybe next time.

A top afternoon, and we even had time to pop in afterwards and top up for the way home.

***

An oft recounted story on LFW is the tale of the QPR fan quizzing Angelo Balanta on how his loan spell at Wycombe went while the poor lad was standing having a piss at the Player of the Year dinner. It’s one that always springs to mind whenever I see supporters meeting the players in any kind of context. A lot of our players are not much more than boys, young lads who are very talented at football. To see grown men giggling and approaching them like nervous school kids, or worse still treating them like they’re some sort of long lost friend presumably for the benefit of everybody else to see how well in they are with the players, always makes me cringe a bit.

But Saturday night was a bit different. We’d ignored Tracey at first when she claimed to have seen the players in the Darlington station buffet. It had been a long day, the 9am departure from Kings Cross had given way to the 11.25am departure from York that came with added alcohol and alcohol had pretty much been added to the mixture every ten minutes or so ever since then. So without wishing to insult poor Tracey I can’t say too much weight was placed in her suggestion that Alejandro Faurlin was just the other side of the information board from us looking up the train times on the Hartlepool branch. But there he was.

Slowly it started to dawn on the other QPR fans hanging around the place that they really weren’t as drunk as they thought, and they really were seeing our players knocking around the place. Suddenly everybody was shaking hands with everybody else. Danny Shittu was proving to be especially popular — he told me he was delighted to be back, then shook my hand and broke three of my fingers. Good God Danny’s a big lad, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like him up close. As you can see Shittu and Adel Taarabt were rather taken with the big flag one group had with them and happily posed with it — Shittu got a tongue in his ear from an over excited member of the travelling group for his troubles. Message board semi-regular Fearless cracked a gag about Hulse missing the train — everybody was happy, everybody was laughing (in general, not really at Ian’s joke).

The journey on the way home flew by, mainly because of the drink and the good mood. I knocked another beer over, my second of the day, but that apart we all had a bloody great trip.

Then back at Kings Cross we had the perfect end to the day. The players climbed out at the front and walked down the platform in their official club gear, the fans got out at the back and gave it the traditional big “You R’s”. It was a terrific moment, one I was pleased to be there for and wished fans of other clubs had seen. It felt, for one moment at least, as if we’d all gone up there together and played a part in a job well done, and now we were back together triumphantly to London to meet the acclaim of the crowds. Well, the three men and a dog waiting for the 10pm Leeds service at any rate. They counted us all out, and they counted us all back — QPR, top of the league.

Middlesbrough: Steele 6, McMahon 6, Hines 5, Davies 5 (Haas 82, -), Bennett 7, Emnes 5 (Zemmama 59, 5), Arca 6 (Robson 59, 6), Bailey 5, Taylor 5, McDonald 5, Lita 5

Subs Not Used: Ripley, Boyd, Grounds, Smallwood

Booked: Robson (taking free kick too quickly)

QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 7 (Connolly 78, 6), Hall 7, Shittu 7, Hill 7, Derry 7, Faurlin 8, Routlede 8, Taarabt 8, Buzsaky 7 (Ephraim 69, 6), Helguson 8 (Hulse 84, -)

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Gorkss, Moen, Miller

Booked: Faurlin (foul) Hall (foul)

Goals: Helguson 41 (assisted Taarabt), 61 (assisted Routledge), Taarabt 68 (penalty won Taarabt)

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